Mohammed Ashim has honed his craft as a barber and beard trimmer in Bengaluru for the past four years.
Recently, the 22‑year‑old has started attaching a camera to his head to capture his work.
The device records only his hands and fingers, while client faces remain blurred.
It’s a straightforward routine, but discipline is key. The operations team taught me to keep my hands cleanly framed, maintain sharp lighting, and avoid sudden head tilts while working.
He spends five to six hours a day wearing the camera.
“The pay is decent, but what truly excites me is being part of something futuristic. I never imagined my razor techniques could be valuable to a global tech company,” he says.
He is one of hundreds of thousands of workers worldwide who are paid to record their daily tasks.
His footage is gathered by a local firm that employs hundreds of people filming their work.
The videos are then sold to technology firms and research organizations that use them to train artificial intelligence, especially physical AI—a type of AI capable of controlling robots in real‑world environments.
Rashdan Technologies collects and processes this human‑generated data.
“Every robotics company and cutting‑edge AI lab seeks specific data—whether for industrial tasks, agriculture, household chores, or small‑scale crafts like pottery, garment making, embroidery, or candle making. ‘We go wherever the task is,’ says Shahil Baig, co‑founder and CEO.”
The company pays between $5 and $10 (roughly £3.74–£7.47) for eight to ten hours of recorded work.
“For many of these workers, that compensation is meaningful,” Baig says.
Ensuring workers’ consent and comfort throughout the process is paramount, he notes.
“We film only hands, not faces, and when multi‑camera rigs capture more of the body or environment we blur faces. No names, contact details, or any personally identifiable information are included in the data we provide.”
However, client demands are becoming more complex.
Clients now request four to six cameras positioned around a person’s head to capture the entire scene, not just the hands.
Securing consent for a single small camera is one thing; getting someone to wear a multi‑camera headset that captures the full scene is another, more challenging conversation. We compensate at a higher rate for this tier of data collection because of the increased burden on the participants.
The sector is growing increasingly competitive, with Agarwal anticipating dozens of new rivals entering the Indian market this year.