A San Francisco startup is paying people $20 an hour to walk robot dogs, and the walks help teach the machines to get around a city.
A San Francisco startup called Dimensional is paying people $20 an hour to walk robot dogs through city streets. No experience is required. The walks are meant to teach the robots how to find their way around a city.
The job was posted to a Bay Area jobs group on Facebook, according to The New York Times. Shifts run four to six hours. Walkers steer the robot while cameras and sensors record the walk.
The robot weighs roughly 33 pounds. If its equipment overheats mid-walk, the walker has to carry it back to the office. Dimensional owns more than 100 robot dogs. The ones on the street are $2,000 models from Chinese maker Unitree.
Dimensional is building an open-source operating system, which means software with publicly available code, that lets AI agents control robots. The aim is for robots to take on manual labor like hauling heavy boxes or working construction sites. Founder Stash Pomichter, 26, told the Times that AI agents are still very bad at controlling hardware. Human walkers fill that gap for now.
The material does not say how many walkers Dimensional wants to hire or how long the work will last. It also does not say when the robots might handle city streets without a person guiding them.
Robots and AI still learn from people doing simple tasks, and in San Francisco that can mean a $20-an-hour walk with a robot dog.
A former Nvidia product manager has started Udu Technologies to let African startups and institutions rent AI computing power instead of buying it.
Read more: Ex-Nvidia engineer starts company to bring AI computing power to AfricaGenRobot AI raised $100 million to record how people work, so robot makers can use those recordings to teach machines home, factory and warehouse tasks.
Read more: Beijing startup raises $100 million to teach robots by watching peopleRecruiters say AI now handles much of the screening work, so employers may start asking what a fee of a share of a new hire's salary actually pays for.
Read more: AI is speeding up hiring and putting recruiter fees under pressure
