--- title: "This Startup Is Paying Strangers to Train AIs" description: "A startup called Hive is paying strangers small amounts of money to train AIs, bit by bit, by labeling photos on their smartphones." date: "2018-10-23" modified: "2018-10-23" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/train-ais-hive-app" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "hive" - "image recognition" - "the digest" - "training ai" --- # This Startup Is Paying Strangers to Train AIs ![Default Futurism featured image]() ## Training Day The artificial intelligence that powers modern image recognition and analysis systems is powerful, but it requires a lot of training. Typically, people have to label various elements in a ton of pictures, then feed that data to the algorithm, which slowly learns to categorize future pictures on its own. All that labor is expensive. So, according to a [new *INSIDER* feature](), a startup called Hive is using the Uber model to get around the issue: It's paying strangers to train AIs, bit by bit, by labeling photos on their smartphones. ## Big Bucks If you decide to train AIs for Hive, don't expect to get rich doing so. Founder Kevin Guo told *INSIDER* that you could conceivably make "tens of dollars" on the app — which isn't nothing, but it's not an epic payday either. But by aggregating all that training data, Hive is attracting big customers. NASCAR, for instance, pays the company to figure out the periods of time during which various corporate logos are displayed during races. It then uses that information to woo advertisers. There's something depressing about Hive, too **—** it suggests a future of work in which the proles have little to offer except gig work training new corporate AIs. Or maybe it'll just be a helpful new tool for brands and an easy way for the rest of us to make some beer money — only time will tell. **READ MORE:** [This CEO Is Paying 600,000 Strangers to Help Him Build Human-Powered AI That's 'Whole Orders of Magnitude Better Than Google']() \[*INSIDER*\] ***More on training AI: [DeepMind Is Teaching AIs How to Manage Real-World Tasks Through Gaming]()*** ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()