People are selling their daily lives to AI companies
People everywhere are now making money by selling bits of their daily lives, like videos and sounds to platforms such as Kled AI and Silencio, and in some cases phone conversations to phone-call-focused platforms like Neon Mobile.
With AI models like ChatGPT hungry for more real-world data, folks like Jacobus Louw in South Africa and Sahil Tigga in India have turned their routines into quick cash.
Quick cash or privacy risk?
Louw earned $14 for a simple walking video, while Tigga pulls in over $100 a month just by sharing ambient sounds.
In Chicago, Ramelio Hill sold his phone chats for extra income.
But there's a flip side: selling your data can mean giving up control, opening the door to privacy risks like deepfakes or unwanted ads.
As one researcher warned, this work can provide short-term monetary benefit but offers little long-term security, so while the money is nice now, the future is less certain.