Business
Why hundreds of people in L.A. are strapping cameras on their bodies to do chores
The hottest new gig-economy job in Los Angeles is performing at home to help artificial intelligence understand how humans move.
Hundreds of people from Santa Monica to Los Feliz are strapping cameras on their heads and hands as they do chores at home so bots can watch how they make coffee, scrub toilets, water plants and wash dishes.
At a corner table at Urth Caffe downtown, a woman is sitting next to a big black bag. A constant flow of visitors stops by. She slips each a package and instructions, and they move on.
“People think I am selling” drugs, she says.
She’s actually a manager for a San Francisco-based firm called Instawork that connects companies and blue-collar workers, and she’s handing out headbands with phone mounts, a simple piece of equipment that lets people record their every move — movements that will be turned into data to train robots how to act.
She hands Salvador Arciga a headmount and tells him to go home and do the dishes and clean his kitchen.
He has done odd jobs all over town: DoorDash delivery, handing out hats at Dodger Stadium, washing dishes at Disneyland, hanging holiday lights at the Los Angeles Zoo and more. This job seems relatively easy, and it pays $80 for two hours of footage.
“I need to do chores anyway,” he says. “Now I get a chance to get paid to do it.”
Salvador Arciga checks in for work in front of Urth Caffe to collect his headset in January.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
AI chatbots like ChatGPT learned to converse, make music, generate images, and write code by using all the information they could get from the internet. Now, as AI and robotics companies figure out how to do the same in the physical world, the models need much more information about real-world movements.
It is not as readily available online, so the quest to capture data on human movement has given rise to a micro-economy that supplies real-world demonstrations of what some call “physical AI” systems, such as humanoid robots.
“Humans are supplying ground truth, judgment, or structured feedback that models can’t reliably produce on their own yet,” said Jason Saltzman, head of insights at market intelligence firm CB Insights.
Some countries already have “arm farms,” dedicated facilities where hundreds of humans record first-person footage of them opening doors or folding laundry for robotics. In China, there are more than 40 state-owned training centers where humans operate robots wearing virtual reality headsets.
The development of robotic models is a key focus for major tech companies like Tesla and Google, as well as California startups such as Figure AI and Dyna Robotics.
Goldman Sachs forecasts the market for humanoids could reach $38 billion by 2035. Much of that will be led by China, but California is also a growing center of next-generation robotics.
This intense demand is driving significant activity among niche data providers. San Francisco-based Encord, for instance, raised $60 million in February after its physical AI operations revenue increased tenfold in the last year. In the same vein, Meta-backed Scale AI has gathered 100,000 hours of footage for robotics, while its Palo Alto-based competitor Micro1 employs 1,000 people across 60 countries to record household tasks.
The global data collection and labeling market alone could reach $17 billion by 2030, says market intelligence firm Grand View Research.
Critics argue this work is extractive and poorly compensated, especially when these AI systems are being trained to ultimately replace human labor.
Still, in an embattled economy, with rising inflation and growing unemployment, more workers like Arciga are turning to these jobs for quick cash. In some cases, entire families sign up to record video, speech and images for AI training to supplement their income.
“It’s one of the biggest gig economies that is going to exist in the whole world,” said Shahbaz Magsi, co-founder of Sunain, a human data capture startup.
Arciga adjusts the headset to record himself doing housework in Koreatown.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Arciga fastens the headset over his black beanie and enables “Do Not Disturb” on his iPhone, before fastening the phone to his head to record.
As he grabs a paper towel to wipe a stain on his stovetop, he narrates what he is doing, as the manager he met at the cafe had instructed him to do. She said it didn’t matter whether he said it in Spanish or English.
“Right now, I am going to use the spray,” he says.
Each task recorded — be it plant watering or kitchen cleaning — has to last between two and 15 minutes.
Instawork, the company that hired Arciga and more than 50 others like him that day, has historically catered to stadiums, hotels, kitchens and other businesses that need temporary workers.
It has also entered the human movement data capture business to leverage its workforce to train and support robotics systems.
Many new startups have begun building custom hardware — cameras and bodysuits — to capture nuances of human movement, pressure, depth of touch and human pose reconstruction for their datasets.
Egyptian immigrants Azzam and Samra Ahmed are padding their savings by performing for bots in their one-bedroom apartment in Pasadena.
They put on wrist and head cameras before preparing dinner.
The wrist camera captures how every muscle moves as they chop vegetables, season and grill chicken and roll up their shawarmas. This level of detail is needed for a robotic model to learn exact hand movements that cannot be caught by the standard human point of view.
Sunain, the human data capture startup, ships these custom wrist cameras to vetted contributors in its network. It has more than 1,400 contributors in Los Angeles, from Culver City and Santa Monica in the west to Pasadena and Los Feliz in the east.
Arciga cleans a kitchen counter while narrating his actions.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
“The region offers unmatched diversity of homes, lifestyles and people,” said Magsi, CEO of Sunain.
Where Instawork orders scripted movements, Sunain encourages its gig workers to record natural human behavior, including jumping between tasks.
If humans hear a running tap in the bathroom while cooking, they pause cooking to go close the tap before returning to cooking. That’s how robots will be expected to behave in the real world.
“These robots need to understand the context switching that humans do,” Magsi said.
For the Ahmeds, who work during the day as a mechanic and a nail salon employee, life in their apartment has been reshaped by robot training. They watch Netflix, cook and play table tennis wearing their gear. Their parents are shocked to see the couple living their normal lives covered in cameras.
“We are making money off something that we do every single day,” Azzam Ahmed said. “That’s like getting paid for breathing.”
It’s not always easy work.
Some workers complain that receiving calls and messages can interrupt their recordings, and having a phone strapped to their head is uncomfortable. Some complain that their videos aren’t accepted sometimes, so it takes longer than they expect to get the right footage to get paid.
A recent attempt by the Ahmeds to record cooking was disqualified for payment after reviewers found that steam from the dish had blocked the video. Since then, the couple have avoided cooking steamy dishes.
Still, they each earned $1,200 by doing chores they recorded.
“That money goes directly to our savings,” Azzam Ahmed said.
Sunain has expanded its robot data capture to homes in Turkey, Singapore, Canada and Malaysia. The company has 25,000 contributors across 30 countries to work on voice, video and text completion tasks.
Arciga says some of his friends have challenged him to reconsider whether he should be training AI to do what only humans can do. “Sometimes they do tell me, ‘Well, you’re the problem,’” he said.
His response is that new technology always brings fear and change and it also creates new kinds of jobs, like his latest gig, and people will always demand a human connection.
“People will still need people,” he said.
Business
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Miranda Kerr help erase $550 million in medical debt for Californians
Snap Chief Executive Evan Spiegel and his wife, supermodel Miranda Kerr, have helped pay off $550 million in medical debt for more than 261,000 Californians.
The couple made a multimillion-dollar donation to Undue Medical Debt, a nonprofit that provides debt relief to people in financial need. The organization acquires medical debt in bulk from hospitals, physician groups, collection agencies and other groups for a fraction of the cost.
“When someone you love is sick. All you want to do is focus on helping them get better,” Kerr said in a video with Spiegel. “That’s why we wanted to support this effort and help relieve medical debt, so families can focus on caring for their loved ones and really supporting their healing.”
The couple and the nonprofit didn’t disclose the exact amount of the donation, but a small gift can go a long way. Every $10 donated to Undue Medical Debt relieves an average of $1,000 in medical debt.
The gift comes as Americans struggle with the medical debt and rising cost of living. California is one of the most expensive states to live in because of soaring housing costs and energy prices. Concerns about wealth inequality have sparked heated political debates about how much billionaires should contribute.
In the United States, 1 in 4 adults are in medical debt, said Undue Medical Debt President and Chief Executive Allison Sesso in a statement.
“It’s a growing crisis undermining healthcare access, economic wellbeing and mental health and we’re so grateful that Evan Spiegel and Miranda Kerr share our belief that no one should go bankrupt because of a cancer diagnosis and no family should have to choose between insulin and groceries,” she said.
Californians whose medical debt have been paid off will start receiving a letter in mid-July from Undue Medical Debt informing them of the debt relief. Individuals can’t request debt relief because the nonprofit acquires bundled debt for thousands of people at once. Those who qualify for debt relief either earn at or below 400% of the federal poverty level or have medical debt that is more than 5% of their income, the nonprofit says on its website.
San Diego County residents benefited the most from the donation with total medical debt relief through the couple’s gift totaling roughly $99 million and affecting 40,369 people. In Los Angeles County, the gift provided $26.7 million in medical debt relief to 17,466 people, according to the nonprofit.
Spiegel, whose net worth is roughly $2 billion, and Kerr have helped relieve debt for others in the past. In 2022, the couple paid off the student loans for the Otis College of Art and Design’s graduating class.
In 2025, Spiegel was among business leaders and philanthropists who helped form the Department of Angels, a group that aims to help L.A.’s fire recovery efforts. The California Community Foundation, Snap, Spiegel and Snapchat co-founder Bobby Murphy committed $10 million to help start that group.
Roughly 200,000 people lost their homes in the January 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires. Spiegel, who grew up in Pacific Palisades and lost his childhood home in the fires, donated $5 million in immediate aid with Snap and Murphy that month.
He said in a statement that California has given so much to him and his family and that he cares “deeply about the wellbeing of our communities.”
“At a time when many families are already facing rising costs across nearly every aspect of daily life, an unexpected medical bill can create financial stress that lasts for years,” Spiegel said.
Undue Medical Debt said it’s abolished more than $40 billion of medical debt in all 50 states.
The electric vehicle company Slate Auto set out in 2022 to make the most affordable electric truck in the country. This week, it unveiled the price tag: $24,950.
At a time when demand for new electric vehicles is cooling and cars are getting harder to afford, Slate’s customizable truck could bring a fresh wave of excitement to the industry.
Deliveries will begin later this year and accelerate in 2027, the company said. Slate’s vehicle is built around a simple concept — pay only for what you actually want.
Buyers will start with a basic truck without power windows or even paint and can then customize it however they like. They can tailor-make their “blank slate” by paying extra for smart phone-compatible screens, speakers, colored wrap or paint. A $5,000 kit even converts the truck into an SUV.
Slate’s design team is based in Los Angeles County and recently moved into a new space in Carson, which employs about 50 workers. The company’s headquarters are in Troy, Mich., and its vehicles will be produced in Warsaw, Ind.
Squeezing out as much cost as possible while making it as easy as Legos to snap on different options has required complex engineering, which is why the company decided to set up its design studio in Southern California. The region is full of experts.
“Slate has done something smart,” said auto industry analyst Brian Moody. “Their EV isn’t only about price, there’s also a strong personalization element. In Southern California, the boxy, retro look will earn it a lot of attention.”
Slate is an EV startup that makes electric trucks and SUVs. Customers buy only the features they want. Photographed on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
The company is building a marketplace of accessories for customers to choose from, including 54 basic wraps that cost less than $500 each. In contrast, a paint job on a car can cost thousands of dollars. The marketplace also offers roof stacks, zip-on seat covers and stereos.
For just under $30,000 total, customers can get a basic SUV in a fastback or squareback style. Whether it’s configured as a truck or SUV, the EV will have an estimated range of 205 miles and will be compatible with Tesla chargers.
“This is the first time in automotive history that consumers are going to get to choose,” said Slate Chief Executive Peter Faricy, who joined the company in March after 13 years with Amazon.
“It started with design, then engineering, and eventually manufacturing, and we figured out innovations in all three of those phases that make the vehicle less expensive,” he said.
For example, Slate vehicles were designed from the beginning to be wrapped instead of painted. The company will offer more than 100 colors of wrap at its launch, or customers can choose a custom color.
Slate did not disclose financial information or how much the vehicles cost to produce. However, Faricy said the company will generate a positive gross margin on its vehicles, meaning they are selling for more than what they cost to make.
“Whether Slate succeeds or fails, it has already influenced the conversation … forcing the industry to ask why affordable vehicles have become so rare,” said Jesse Toprak, an industry analyst and founder of OptiCar.ai. “They are betting on making higher profit margins on the accessories and do-it-yourself angle.”
Slate says it has already received more than 180,000 reservations. The earlier a customer placed their reservation, the sooner they’ll get their vehicle. Pre-orders opened Wednesday for $300, or $250 if the customer has already paid a $50 reservation fee.
Despite the hype, Slate is still a startup that has yet to prove itself in the market. The company has about 750 employees and has raised more than $700 million from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and others.
“For the vehicle itself, the concept is brilliant,” Toprak said. “I think the execution risk is enormous.”
The EV industry has been under fire from the Trump administration, which has removed incentives for ownership and clean-car goals. Major automakers including Ford and Stellantis have pared back their EV offerings, and other startups have struggled to turn a profit.
The Irvine-based EV company Rivian, which hasn’t reached profitability since its founding in 2009, recently laid off hundreds of workers. It launched its highly anticipated R2 SUV earlier this month, which will eventually be available for less than $45,000.
Lucid, the luxury electric vehicle maker based in Newark, Calif., announced this week that it’s reducing its workforce by 18%. The cuts come just months after it laid off 319 Bay Area employees in February.
Faricy, Slate’s chief executive, said the company’s vehicle will appeal to a wide range of customers.
“There will be a lot of people that are attracted to the affordability but have never had an EV before,” he said.
According to Cox Automotive, the average transaction price for a new EV in the U.S. is $55,000, compared with $49,000 for a gas-powered vehicle.
“The EV market at this point doesn’t have a technology problem anymore,” Toprak said. “It has an affordability problem. Slate is one of the first companies built entirely around solving that.”
Sony Pictures will invest $100 million and take a minority stake in virtual reality venue operator Cosm, as the studio continues to build a business in communal experiences.
As part of the investment, Sony Pictures Chief Executive Ravi Ahuja will also join Cosm’s board of directors, the studio said Wednesday. The size of Sony’s minority stake was not disclosed.
The El Segundo-based Cosm currently operates three venues — one at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, and the others in Dallas and Atlanta. The company plans to open additional venues in Detroit and Cleveland.
Cosm bills itself as a “shared reality venue,” and its facilities center around a massive, wraparound screen that is intended to envelop viewers with additional digital effects. The company has largely focused on sports, though it has also shown Cirque du Soleil shows and done several collaborations with Warner Bros., including recent screenings of 2001’s “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” in honor of the film’s 25th anniversary.
“Cosm sits at the intersection of several trends shaping the future of entertainment,” Ahuja said in a statement. “We’ve followed Cosm since before launch and have been impressed with the quality of the experience and the enthusiasm it’s generating with audiences.”
The investment is Sony’s latest venture into experiential entertainment. In 2024, the Culver City-based studio acquired dine-in theater chain Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.
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