MeitY questions Pronto over filming home workers to train AI
India's IT ministry is looking at platforms that record first-person video of gig workers in homes to train robots. Pronto does it; Snabbit and Urban Company won't.
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giftdetect· the right gift in minutesIndia's IT ministry has started asking awkward questions about a simple idea: strap a camera to a home worker and use the footage to teach robots. The MeitY scrutiny of Pronto's in-home video recording is the first sign that regulators are paying attention to how "physical AI" gets its training data.
According to an Economic Times report, senior officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology met representatives of home services platforms on Thursday. Snabbit, Pronto and Urban Company were among them, along with technology and robotics companies. The agenda was the collection of first-person video and sensor data from gig workers, and what it means for the workers' rights.
What is physical AI training data?
Physical AI means systems, such as robots, that act in the real world rather than just generate text or images. To learn chores, they need to see how people actually do them. First-person video and sensor readings from someone cleaning or cooking show exactly that, which is why home services platforms are an obvious source.
Where do the platforms stand?
Pronto has an initiative to record video inside homes. Rivals Snabbit and Urban Company have decided not to adopt the practice, according to the report.
The obvious concerns are about the people being filmed: the workers, and by extension the households they walk into. The summary of the meeting does not say what, if anything, the ministry has decided, so there is no rule or ban on the table yet. For now it is a conversation between regulators, platforms and the robotics firms that want the data.
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