I Tried DoorDash’s Tasks App and Saw the Bleak Future of AI Gig Work

from flash My iPhone camera illuminates my dirty socks and underwear as I hold each object to clearly capture the video recording. As I put my smelly clothes in the washer, I shudder a little every time the phone beeps loudly, realizing that maybe my hands are out of frame. Gotta see those fingers! No, I haven’t turned to filming any kind of erotic content to make ends meet — I’ve been trying out DoorDash’s newest gig work app, called Tasks.

Food delivery app DoorDash’s new Tasks app has nothing to do with delivering food — it’s all about gathering training data from humans, i.e. you, to improve generative AI models and humanoid robots. “This data helps AI and robotic systems understand the physical world,” DoorDash’s press release says. “Salary is shown in advance and is determined based on the effort and complexity of the activity.” Most programs involve strapping a smartphone to your chest and recording your hands performing specific tasks.

This type of video data can be used by developers of AI models and robotics to improve performance. For example, thousands of videos of people washing clothes, with their hands clearly visible, could help teach a robot how to perform the same task using computer vision.

Photograph: Reece Rogers

DoorDash plans to expand this service to include a wider range of functions and users in the future. It’s unclear where the app is available to users in the US at launch—residents of California, New York City, Seattle, and Colorado are apparently blocked from using Tasks. (I was able to use the Tasks app and complete gigs while living in Kansas.)

Curious about what types of tasks DoorDash was offering right now, I signed up to become a “Dasher” and downloaded the Tasks app. After logging in, the onboarding search was to film yourself carrying three objects on a table. Easy! I turned on the camera and moved my coffee cup, pen, and laptop from one side of my desk to the other. My reward for this wasn’t cash — DoorDash later sent me a free body-mount for my smartphone camera so I could complete more events in the app.

After that quick onboarding session, I was able to view the entire list of potential jobs and start earning some cash. The gigs currently available in the Tasks app mainly fall into five major categories: household chores, handicraft projects, cooking, location navigation, and foreign language conversations.

The work within these categories is quite broad. The chore list includes everything from making the beds and loading the dishwasher to replanting plants and taking out the trash. Handicraft projects range from simple tasks like changing a lightbulb to more complex tasks like pouring cement. Cooking mostly revolves around eggs: frying them, poaching them, scrambling them. Navigation programs include exploring a museum and walking around an apartment complex. For language-based tasks, the app requests “natural conversations” in Russian and Mandarin Chinese, as well as other languages.