You sit at home, start a video call, and receive a simple instruction: improvise. No script, no director, no stage. Just you, a stranger on the other side of the screen, and room for a spontaneous performance. It sounds like an unusual theater audition. In reality, it is a job for one of the world's leading artificial intelligence companies.
What Handshake AI actually offers and to whom
The company Handshake AI posted a job opening that immediately attracted attention. It is looking for actors, improvisers, and performers to participate in a paid collaborative project with what the listing describes as "one of the leading AI companies." The company has not disclosed the name of the specific client.
The job works like this: an applicant signs up, receives a loose prompt or situation, and then improvises with another actor over video. No scripts, no fixed scenes. Just natural, spontaneous interaction. Handshake describes it as an "unscripted and open-ended session" where participants "improvise scenes, explore characters, and respond naturally in the moment."
The terms? Part-time, fully remote, flexible work. The company explicitly says it is suitable as a side job alongside auditions, acting classes, or rehearsals. And the pay? An average of $74 per hour, or roughly 1,700 Czech koruna. That is not bad, especially for actors looking for a way to pay the rent between engagements.
But the requirements are specific. Knowing how to act is not enough. The listing explicitly asks for "emotional awareness," specifically the "ability to recognize, express, and transition between emotions in a way that feels authentic and human." It seeks interactions that are "grounded, human, and engaging." That is exactly what cannot be learned from a dataset downloaded from the internet.
Why does AI need actors?
This brings us to the heart of the matter. Artificial intelligence models are described by experts as "uneven." They can draft a legal contract, solve complex mathematics, or generate code. But then they stumble over things that are trivial to us. Such as recognizing that someone is speaking ironically. Or sensing that the person on the other end is frustrated, even if they do not say so directly.
This is the gap that AI companies are trying to fill. And they have realized that doing so requires something that cannot simply be downloaded from the web: authentic, nuanced, emotionally rich human interactions.
Context is important. Large AI models today are fully multimodal. They communicate not only through text but also by voice, in real time, with realistic intonation. OpenAI launched an advanced voice mode with a whole range of different voices. Elon Musk's Grok offers voice chat. Anthropic has had a voice feature for its Claude since last May. These systems do not just need to speak. They need to establish a genuine connection.
And to do that, they need data that captures how people actually communicate. With emotion, humor, tension, and unexpected twists. Exactly what improv actors do every day.
The training data market boom
Handshake AI is not an isolated case. It is part of a rapidly growing industry of companies that provide specialized training data to major AI labs. They operate as behind-the-scenes suppliers, feeding models what they need.
And business is booming. Demand for training data at Handshake AI tripled last summer. In November, the company surpassed $150 million in annual revenue and is still struggling to keep up with demand. Competitors such as Mercor and Scale AI are doing the same thing. They are building networks of tens of thousands of experts from various fields. Chemists. Doctors. Lawyers. Screenwriters. And now improv actors.
The logic is clear. An AI model is only as good as the data on which it is trained. Want a model that can handle tense business negotiations? Train it on data from lawyers. Want a model that can diagnose rare diseases? You need data from doctors. And want a model that can hold a warm, emotionally intelligent conversation? You turn to actors.
The acting community responds
Not everyone in the acting community is enthusiastic. In fact, many of them are not enthusiastic at all.
On Reddit, in the r/improv community, Handshake AI's offer is being hotly debated. Reactions range from skepticism to outright resentment. One user called it "dystopian." Another wrote bluntly: "It is clearly an attempt to get people to train AI models to create AI-generated videos." A third said they planned to "sabotage the inputs."
One comment was sarcastic but apt: "Now AI is coming for our lucrative improv comedy jobs too." It got a laugh, but beneath it lies real anxiety. Actors fear they are training a system that will eventually replace them. It is an uncomfortable dilemma. Take the money now and help build something that may push you out of the market. Or refuse and watch someone else do it.
The Verge notes that doctors, lawyers, and screenwriters are asking themselves the same question. Are they hastening their own demise?
Opportunity or trap?
Let us be fair. There are compelling arguments on both sides.
For actors between engagements, $74 per hour is a genuinely attractive rate. The work is flexible, remote, and draws on real skills. It does not require relocating, going through auditions, or navigating the brutal economics of traditional show business. For someone juggling acting classes, side jobs, and auditions, this kind of work could meaningfully fill the gaps.
But the risks are real. The Verge notes that initial pay on similar projects falls quickly after a participant signs up. And a flexible schedule is not as flexible as it looks when workers are competing for a limited number of tasks that can appear or disappear at any time.
And then there is the larger, existential question. Traditional theater roles, film projects, and television engagements offer more than just money. They do not carry the burden of potentially training your own replacement.
AI and human communication
Let us step back from the individual dilemma. What does it mean that technology companies are hiring performers to teach their models how to feel?
It means we are entering a new phase in the development of artificial intelligence. The race is no longer just about raw intelligence. It is about emotional intelligence. About building systems that do not merely answer questions but truly understand the person asking them. Assistants that recognize you are under stress before you even say so. Voice interfaces that adjust their tone when you are sad. AI that reads not only your words but also your intent. That is the direction in which things are moving.
And here lies the greatest irony. The very qualities that make human performers irreplaceable—spontaneity, emotional depth, authentic presence—are exactly what AI companies are trying to capture and replicate. They are not hiring actors because they consider them obsolete. They are hiring them because they simply cannot do it without them.
One Reddit user put it beautifully: "I predict a return of live comedy because people will get tired of online services and want something raw, real, face-to-face. I think that could be a great marketing pitch for improv groups: come see real, unpolished comedy that was NOT made by a computer."
There is something to that. The more AI polishes its emotional performance, the more people may long for the raw, unfiltered version. The one that stumbles, surprises itself, and is honestly, chaotically human.
The stage has changed. The audience has changed. But the need for genuine human expression? That has not changed at all. Perhaps it is more valuable than ever.
Additional source: kingy.ai
