AI lab offers free plumbing and HVAC repairs across three cities to train AI robots

An AI lab that specializes in gathering real-world data wants to partner with homeowners to record how skilled laborers do their jobs to train AI robots. HUMXN said it will subsidize plumbing, electrical, HVAC, air-duct cleaning, and carpet cleaning, allowing people who need these services to get them for free in exchange for letting someone in with “wearable capture technology” work inside their home.

“The next generation of AI is going to need more than text and images from the internet. Robots need to understand how skilled people interact with the physical world. Home-service technicians perform millions of highly technical tasks every day. We are creating a way for homeowners and service companies to benefit financially from the value of that expertise,” HUMXN founder Thomas Unise said.

He also added, “There are millions of skilled workers performing incredibly complex tasks every day, but very little of that expertise exists in a format that AI systems can learn from. We want to build the infrastructure that connects that knowledge with the companies building the next generation of intelligent machines while making sure the people creating the value participate in the economics.”

HUMXN said it’s difficult to capture skilled workers' natural movements in lab settings. By working with homeowners, it could capture data across “different homes, equipment types, problems, technicians, and environments.” It would also give AI models insight into how technicians get the job done—from examining the situation and testing systems to choosing the right tools, responding to changing conditions, and determining whether the job was completed successfully.

The lab says its system would let homeowners get qualifying work done on their property for free while still ensuring service professionals get paid. On the other hand, HUMXN essentially pays residents for the right to record on their premises to gather real-world training data. The company is launching its program in three cities—Minneapolis, Chicago, and Miami—to gather data from places with very different climates. If you live in one of these cities and need something done or repaired at home, you can check whether you qualify on the HUMXN Free Home Service webpage.

HUMXN’s effort to pay for training data is refreshing, after many AI labs, including Meta, Nvidia, and OpenAI, have been accused of stealing data to train their models. But the next generation of AI likely can't be trained on just text, images, and video scraped from the internet, so companies like these may be forced to pay for data generated from real-world activities.

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