I Got a Free Meal From a Private Chef—Who Filmed It All to Train Robots

When the private chef sent by Shift arrived at my apartment to cook a three-course meal, he was already ready to record. He walked through my front door wearing a baseball hat with a blocky, white camera attached to the brim. I signed up for a free lunch in exchange for the whole experience being recorded and uploaded as training data. As chef Ali unpacked his supplies and started on a gazpacho, the hat cam recorded his hand movements, with the intention that this data could help build a better robot—one with culinary expertise. It’s all part of the growing boom of egocentric data collection—r...