A San Francisco startup reportedly posted a job offering $20 an hour to walk robot dogs through city streets as it works to train AI to better navigate the real world.
Dimensional recently posted a job listing seeking robot dog operators to take four-legged machines on four- to six-hour walks around San Francisco. No robotics experience was required, and paid training was included, according to The New York Times.
“Start right away and get paid right after each completed shift. Paid training is included,” the Oct. 5 posting said, according to a screenshot shared by the outlet.
“Dimensional is hiring dependable people to operate a four-legged robot on outdoor testing routes around San Francisco.”
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Workers also had to be comfortable handling equipment weighing about 33 pounds because the robots sometimes overheat or stop working and have to be carried back, The New York Times reported.
The since-deleted Facebook post was part of Dimensional’s effort to improve how AI-powered robots operate independently in real-world environments.
Dimensional founder Stash Pomichter told The New York Times that human operators steer the robot dogs while cameras and sensors collect data about their surroundings.
“What we determined from our dog-walking experiment was that agents are still very bad at controlling hardware,” Pomichter said. “And humans are still needed in the loop.”
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Dimensional, based in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, is developing an open-source operating system designed to allow AI agents to control robots.
The company has purchased more than 100 robot dogs and 50 humanoid robots from manufacturers in the U.S., China and Germany, according to The New York Times.
The robot dogs used for the San Francisco walks cost about $2,000 each and were made by Chinese robotics company Unitree. They can be controlled using a handheld remote or mobile app.
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Dimensional hopes its technology can put robots to work in factories, data centers, construction sites and security roles.
“It’s honestly barbaric that humans are still doing these physical tasks,” Pomichter told the outlet, referring to jobs such as carrying heavy boxes.
FOX Business attempted to reach Dimensional for comment.
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