An SF startup is training AI agents to control robots independently through the use of paid "robot-dog walkers," and the project has already drawn threatening messages and a visit to the company's office from a disgruntled resident.
San Francisco-based Dimensional, which recently posted a $20-an-hour job listing for “Robot-Dog Walkers” in the Facebook group Bay Area Jobs, is using the walks to teach its robot dogs how to navigate city streets and sidewalks. As the New York Times reports, the company needs human handlers to steer the machines while their cameras and sensors record the surroundings, giving researchers a baseline for comparing human-controlled movements with those directed by AI. Handlers must also reportedly carry the machines back to Dimensional's office if they overheat. The listing specified that applicants needed to be comfortable safely handling equipment weighing about 33 pounds.
The startup, based in the Dogpatch, is reportedly developing an open-source operating system that would allow AI agents to control robots and carry out physical tasks with less human intervention. Founder Stash Pomichter told the Times that the company has purchased more than 100 robot dogs and 50 humanoid robots from manufacturers in the United States, China, and Germany.
The robot dogs being tested cost about $2,000 apiece and are manufactured by Chinese robotics company Unitree. Unlike many robots that perform specific programmed functions, Dimensional wants its machines to be able to respond to instructions from AI agents and independently navigate the physical world, potentially taking on jobs such as moving heavy objects, working in factories, monitoring data centers, and patrolling construction sites.
According to the Times, the company found that its AI agents still struggled to control the hardware as effectively as people did during the walking experiment.
“What we determined from our dog-walking experiment was that agents are still very bad at controlling hardware,” Pomichter said, speaking to the Times. “And humans are still needed in the loop.”
Pomichter told the Times he programmed one of the robot dogs to patrol the company's warehouse-like office overnight, telling it to notify him if it spots someone after midnight so he can check the security cameras to determine whether the person is an employee or an intruder.
Giving robots the ability to operate independently in the physical world presents considerable safety concerns, as demonstrated by a recent incident involving Van Ness-based Robot Entertainment Kombat (REK), whose humanoid robots repeatedly knocked a human participant around during a cage match, prompting state regulators to intervene, as SFist reported earlier this month.
As previously reported, a human handler in China was kicked in the groin by a humanoid robot manufactured by Unitree, the same company that makes Dimensional's robot robots, while mimicking its handler's movements. Another Unitree humanoid was reportedly detained by police after frightening an elderly woman so badly that she required hospitalization.
Dimensional has also begun to receive backlash from residents. The Times reports that a man recently visited the company's Dogpatch office and later sent threatening text messages to an employee, accusing the company of developing robots that would be used as weapons.
“Have fun helping slaughter random people you scum,” he wrote, which Dimensional reported to police.
In response, Pomichter told the Times the company will likely need more “patrol dogs.”
According to Business Insider, Pomichter launched his first company at age 14 when he co-founded healthtech startup Fitgenetix.
Related: That Humanoid Fighting Robot Startup on Van Ness Just Got a Cease and Desist From the State