A swirl of questions arose this week after video clips went viral online that showed workers wearing headbands mounted with what looked like cameras.
One was of a garments facility that had rows of people with digital crowns whirring away at work.
What was being recorded and why?
An X post by home-services startup Pronto offered a partial answer; it was using such devices as a pilot run to record household tasks, it said, as part of an opt-in package for customers in line with India’s new privacy law.
Such camera-loaded headbands are designed to gather videographic data on task processes as AI training inputs.
In general, even if their wearers have signed consent forms, the idea takes us into a grey zone of labour rights.
Sure, factory workflow data isn’t personal, but ethics would demand that workers not only be asked, but be informed of what the aim is.
For this part to be meaningful, whatever such an exercise could enable must be conveyed clearly to wearers.
Task analysis by AI could help optimize human tasks, for example, or make them safer.
But it could also craft a plan for AI-guided robots to displace headband-wearers. Those whose jobs may be at risk deserve to know.