Offshoring automation: Filipino tech workers power global AI jobs

Inside a multistory office building in Manila’s financial district, around 60 young men and women monitored and controlled artificial intelligence robots restocking convenience store shelves in distant Japan. 

Occasionally, when a bot dropped a can, someone would don a virtual-reality headset and use joysticks to help recover it. 

The AI robots are designed by Tokyo-based startup Telexistence, and run on Nvidia and Microsoft platforms. Since 2022, the company has deployed the…