Cameras on workers’ heads train AI to understand physical labor

Startup Turing Labs figured out how to train AI to see and understand the world. Strap GoPro cameras on freelancers’ heads and make them work. Sounds like mockery? Perhaps. But the method seems to work.

Company freelancers wear GoPro on their heads for 5 hours a day, performing creative work and everyday tasks. The filmed material is synchronized so the system gets different angles of one and the same action. Goal – to teach computer vision models more abstract skills. Related to sequential problem-solving and visual thinking.

The company works with artists, builders, cooks, electricians – with everyone who works with their hands. Turing’s AI director Sudarshan Sivaram called manual data collection the only way to get a sufficiently diverse dataset. They hire representatives of different working professions to accumulate the most diverse dataset at the preparation stage.

And after collecting all information, AI models will be able to understand how a certain task is performed, Sivaram explained.

In the end it turns out: people work with cameras on their heads, like living sensors for AI. The system learns to look through their eyes and understand how physical labor works. The future has arrived, and it looks kind of strange.