SAN FRANCISCO (WKRC) – A tech startup is reportedly offering $20 an hour to walk robotic dogs.
According to FOX Business, citing a report from The New York Times, a San Francisco startup is offering people $20 an hour to walk robot dogs on city streets as it gathers data to help train artificial intelligence.
Dimensional recently advertised for robot dog operators to take the four-legged machines on walks lasting four to six hours. The job did not require robotics experience, and the company offered paid training, The Times reported.
“Start right away and get paid right after each completed shift. Paid training is included,” the Oct. 5 listing said, according to a screenshot shared by the publication.
The posting described the role as operating a four-legged robot on outdoor testing routes around San Francisco. Workers also needed to be comfortable handling equipment weighing about 33 pounds. The robots sometimes overheat or stop working and must be carried back, the publication reported.
The since-deleted Facebook post was part of Dimensional’s effort to improve how AI-powered robots operate in real-world settings.
Founder Stash Pomichter told The Times that people steer the robot dogs while their cameras and sensors collect information about their surroundings.
“What we determined from our dog-walking experiment was that agents are still very bad at controlling hardware,” Pomichter said, per the report. “And humans are still needed in the loop.”
Dimensional, based in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, is developing an open-source operating system that would let AI agents control robots.
The company has bought more than 100 robot dogs and 50 humanoid robots from manufacturers in the United States, China and Germany, according to The Times.
The robot dogs used on the San Francisco routes cost about $2,000 each and were made by Chinese robotics company Unitree. They can be operated with a handheld remote or mobile app.
Dimensional hopes its technology will eventually 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 publication, referring to jobs such as carrying heavy boxes.