AI companies want to use improvised actors to train AI on human emotions

If you have strong creative instincts, the ability to authentically portray emotions, and are able to stay true to the character’s voice throughout a scene, there is a list of jobs that require your experience.

The catch: You won’t be performing in a theater, movie studio, or underground performance space. You’ll use your talents to train an AI model for “a leading AI company,” according to Open role Published by Handshake, a company that provides training data for OpenAI And other laboratories.

Handshake AI is one of the few companies of its kind, striving to provide more and more specialized or specific training data to AI labs in order to feed models. AI models are often described as “rough,” meaning that they are usually great at some surprisingly complex tasks but fail badly at some simple ones. AI companies are trying to fix gaps in their models’ knowledge by disaggregating specialized data, and companies like Handshake, Mercor, and Scale AI have adapted accordingly, hiring specialists in a wide range of industries.

Demand for training data in Handshake tripled last summer Edge I mentioned In DecemberThe company surpassed a $150 million run rate in November, and is scrambling to keep up with demand. Handshake and its competitors have touted their networks of tens of thousands (or more) of professionals in management industries, from chemists and doctors to lawyers and screenwriters. Many of these are professionals They worry that they are training AI models in a way that will make their careers obsolete Even faster than it would happen otherwise.

And now leading AI labs have come to film sketches, improvise actors, and more.

“Handshake AI invites actors, improvisers and performers to join a paid collaborative improv project working with a leading AI company,” the job description says, and promising participants will be “matched with other artists via video and given a light-hearted prompt or script to explore together.”

The job listing calls for people with a background in acting, improvisation, drawing, or theater work of any kind, and it takes great pains to point out — multiple times — that it’s looking for people who can essentially “test the limits of understanding of the world’s best MBA students” by teaching models how to recognize or replicate human tones and emotions. “Emotional awareness” is one requirement, for example, specifically “the ability to recognize, express, and navigate emotions in a way that feels authentic and human.” The job listing also called for “interactions that feel grounded, human, and fun to play.”

Handshake declined to comment, and the listing did not specify what the training data would be used for.

In recent years, AI companies have turned fully to “multimedia” models that can not only generate images and videos, but can also talk to users via voice interactions, complete with real-life inflections. After OpenAI first tested ChatGPT’s voice mode, the company leaned further into the feature in 2024, when it first launched an advanced version with a range of different voices to choose from. Elon Musk’s xAI provides voice chat within Grok. Anthropic’s Claude has offered an audio feature, at least in beta, since then Last May.

Handshake’s job listing goes on to say that sessions are “unscripted and open-ended,” adding that participants will “improvise scenes, explore characters, and respond naturally in the moment, with plenty of creative freedom to shape how each interaction unfolds.” This role also promises flexible, part-time assignments that are “easy to fit in alongside auditions, classes, or rehearsals,” with an average wage of $74 per hour. But as Edge I mentioned recentlyThe starting pay for these projects often dwindles quickly once a participant signs up, and the flexible nature of the schedule doesn’t seem very flexible when workers are competing for a limited number of new tasks that can become available, or disappear, at any moment.

Members of the r/improv community on Reddit He owns discussion the The list of Handshake AI functions is lengthy, with some describing it as “miserable.” “It’s clearly just an attempt to get people to train AI models to create AI-generated videos,” one user wrote. Another wrote: “I think they are trying to teach human conversation not how to be improvised. My plan was to sabotage the input.” Another joked: “Now AI is coming to take our lucrative stand-up comedy jobs.”

Another user wrote: “I predict a return of live comedy from people who are fed up with online services and want some tough comedy, real face-to-face entertainment. I think this could be a great marketing angle for improv troupes: come and see real, uncut, laugh out loud, not computer generated comedy.”