#shift

This week, an AI training startup called Shift said it would clean New Yorkers' homes for free. It has plans to expand into other cities as well, including London, and looking around my flat, I get the appeal. But there's a catch. There's always a catch. In exchange for the cleaning, Shift wants footage of its cleaners at work: scrubbing dishes, wiping counters, dusting tables, mopping floors. It wants everything. Video of all the boring domestic labor we'd happily outsource if we could - and that robotics companies are racing to teach machines to do so they can sell us something to do it for us. That's harder than it sounds. Unlike cha … Read the full story at The Verge.

AI training startup Shift wants to clean your home for free. The catch - because, despite what its website says, there's always a catch - is that it will record cleaners as they scrub, vacuum, dust, tidy, and wash, and use that footage to train robots. Shift announced the unusual offer on social media on Thursday, explaining that the value of the training data generated from the cleanings is more than enough to fund the service. As its website puts it: "You get a spotless apartment. We get training data. Everyone wins." A promotional video shows a cleaner in a crisp white uniform and awkward-looking hat (more on that later) washing windows … Read the full story at The Verge.