This AI startup will clean your home for free to train future robots

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, mopping and vacuuming floors, scrubbing dishes, and wiping down counters. According to Shift’s co-CEO and co-founder Bercan Kilic, this “magic hat” is what records the work. Peak fashion it is not, but it does contain a camera that captures footage from the cleaner’s point of view.

Footage from inside your home is, of course, what you’re paying for the cleaning service with. On its website, Shift says customers’ “privacy is fully protected,” with sensitive details like names, faces, or personal information from screens and ID cards blurred and anonymized before being used for AI training. Shift says its cleaners are also vetted by its partners, though stresses they are not Shift employees.

“Every home cleaned today lays the groundwork for a home that cleans itself tomorrow,” the company says in the video. As it happens, the dirtier the better. An FAQ on the company’s website says “more challenging cleaning environments can be especially useful.” There are limits, however, and cleaners “may decline any specific task they are not comfortable performing.”

The service is initially only available in New York, but Kilic says it will be available “very soon” in San Francisco, London, Zurich, and Munich. The free cleanings are only available for a “limited time,” but the model fits within a growing market for recordings of human tasks that can be used to train AI systems and robots. Shift says it already pays tens of thousands of people across 15 countries to record their activities through its app.

Cleaning may only be the start. Shift’s video says it eventually plans to move into other areas like plumbing, cooking, and building.