If this isn’t a sign of the times, I don’t know what is:
A San Francisco start-up put out an ad looking for dogwalkers . . . with no experience necessary. Okay. The pay is $20 an hour. Okay. But the dog is not a REAL dog . . . it’s a ROBOT DOG.
On the plus side, there’s no need to clean up after the robot dog . . . and you don’t have to worry about anyone getting upset about it peeing in their yard.
On the negative side, the robots can be as stubborn as REAL dogs . . . like refusing to move in the middle of a busy street . . . getting confused and distracted . . . or “giving up” when its equipment gets overheated.
So it’s possible that you’d have to CARRY the “dog” back . . . and it weighs around 33 pounds.
The start-up is called Dimensional, and the ads were posted to the Facebook group “Bay Area Jobs.” San Francisco people didn’t seem phased by the weird assignment. One comment said, “My son is interested” . . . and another said, “I can start right away.”
If you’re wondering WHY, it’s simple:
Dimensional is building an open-source operating system for robots, and they need to improve the robots’ ability to autonomously navigate an urban environment. And to “teach” them that, they need humans to guide them.
The founder says the dogwalkers are helping to create a “ground truth” by controlling and steering RoboFido, while its cameras and sensors record the walk.
They aren’t currently looking for more applicants . . . but they might in the future because it’s still a work in progress.