AI Companies Turn to Improv Actors to Teach AI Human Emotion

A unique professional opportunity is emerging, specifically seeking individuals with the “ability to recognize, express, and shift between emotions in a way that feels authentic and human.”

For those possessing strong creative instincts, the aptitude to genuinely convey emotion, and the skill to maintain a character's consistent voice throughout a scene, a particular job listing is actively seeking your expertise.

However, this role deviates from traditional performance venues such as theaters, film studios, or underground spaces. Instead, your talents would be harnessed to train an artificial intelligence model for “one of the leading AI companies,” as detailed in an open position posted by Handshake, a firm specializing in providing training data to entities like OpenAI and other research labs.

Handshake AI is among a select group of companies dedicated to supplying increasingly specialized and niche training data to AI labs, crucial for feeding their models. AI models are frequently characterized as "jagged" – meaning they excel at surprisingly complex tasks but often struggle significantly with simpler ones. To address these knowledge gaps, AI companies are employing specialized data labeling. Companies such as Handshake, Mercor, and Scale AI have adapted by recruiting professionals from a broad spectrum of industries.

Demand for Handshake’s training data experienced a threefold increase last summer, a development reported by The Verge in December. The company’s run rate surpassed $150 million in November, as it rapidly scaled to meet this surging demand. Handshake and its rivals proudly highlight their extensive networks of tens of thousands, if not more, white-collar professionals, ranging from chemists and doctors to lawyers and screenwriters. A significant concern among many of these professionals is that they might be inadvertently accelerating their own career obsolescence by training AI models.

Now, the forefront AI labs are extending their reach to include sketch comics, improv actors, and other performers.

The job description states, “Handshake AI is inviting actors, improvisers, and performers to join a paid, collaborative improv project to work with one of the leading AI companies.” It further assures participants that they will be “matched with other performers over video and given a light prompt or scenario to explore together.”

The listing specifically targets individuals with backgrounds in acting, improv, sketch, or any form of theater work. It repeatedly emphasizes a desire for candidates capable of essentially “testing the limits of the world’s top LLMs’ understanding” by instructing models on how to recognize and replicate human tone and emotions. "Emotional awareness" is a core requirement, particularly the “ability to recognize, express, and shift between emotions in a way that feels authentic and human.” Additionally, the role seeks “interactions that feel grounded, human, and fun to play.”

Handshake declined to comment on the role, and the listing itself does not specify the ultimate application of the training data.

In recent years, AI companies have fully embraced “multimodal” models, which are not only capable of generating images and video but also engaging users through voice interactions, complete with realistic inflections. Following OpenAI’s initial tests of ChatGPT’s voice mode, the company further developed this feature in 2024, introducing an Advanced version with a variety of selectable voices. Elon Musk’s xAI integrates voice chat within Grok, and Anthropic’s Claude has offered a voice feature, at least in beta, since last May.

The Handshake job listing further describes sessions as “unscripted and open-ended,” noting that participants will “improvise scenes, explore characters, and respond naturally in the moment, with plenty of creative freedom to shape how each interaction unfolds.” The position also advertises part-time, flexible tasks that are “easy to fit alongside auditions, classes, or rehearsals,” with an average pay of $74 per hour. However, as The Verge recently reported, the initial pay for such projects often diminishes quickly after a participant signs up. Furthermore, the promised flexibility of the schedule can become less apparent as workers vie for a limited number of new tasks that may appear or disappear at any given moment.

Members of the r/improv community on Reddit have extensively discussed the Handshake AI job listing, with some characterizing it as “dystopian.” One user commented, “It’s clearly just an attempt to get people to train AI models to create AI generated videos.” Another wrote, “I think they are trying to teach it human conversation not how to be an improviser. My plan was to sabotage the inputs.” A third user humorously remarked, “Now AI is coming for our lucrative improv comedy jobs.”

In contrast, another user shared an optimistic perspective: “I predict a resurgence of live comedy from people being sick of online services and wanting some rough around the edges, real, face-to-face entertainment. I think that could be a great marketing angle for improv teams: come see real, unpolished, laugh out loud comedy, NOT made by a computer.”