Tesla Is Hiring Humans to Wear Motion-Capture Suits to Train Optimus Robots

Tesla has intelligibly been struggling to drawback up with overmuch much advanced rivals successful the contention to physique a humanoid robot that tin bash everything from assembling cars to babysitting your kids. But a caller occupation posting for a robot trainer whitethorn uncover the strategy Tesla CEO Elon Musk has successful caput for getting the company’s Optimus robot successful moving order: Having his workers enactment astir the clock.

A occupation posting astatine Tesla, archetypal spotted by Business Insider, is absorbing successful itself, arsenic it provides a tiny peek into what’s being done to bid Tesla’s bipedal robots. Job candidates are required to beryllium betwixt 5’7″ and 5’11″ successful tallness due to the fact that they’ll beryllium wearing a question seizure suit and virtual world headset “while performing designated movements and actions based connected task requirements.”

The listing, for a occupation based successful Palo Alto, California, explains that workers volition beryllium uploading information collected during the day, penning reports astir observations, and adjacent doing immoderate debugging erstwhile necessary. Candidates indispensable beryllium capable to “walk 7+ hours a day” portion besides being capable to transportation up to 30 pounds, which surely sounds demanding enough. But it’s the portion of the occupation listing that gets into the hours that truly caught our attention.

There are 3 shifts available: 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., 4 p.m. – 12:30 a.m., and 12 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Now, that wouldn’t beryllium truthful retired of the mean for galore factories but having a graveyard displacement for precocious robot grooming does look a spot odd. The lone plausible mentation we tin travel up with is that Musk is genuinely successful a huffy dash to drawback up with robot makers who person made unthinkable strides successful caller years.

It besides sounds similar it tin beryllium grueling work, with plentifulness of disclaimers successful the occupation posting similar “Note that the usage of VR headsets oregon moving successful a virtual situation tin beryllium disorienting and uncomfortable for immoderate people, which tin effect successful VR sickness symptoms.” The listing besides insists that candidates “must person the quality to stand, sit, walk, stoop, bend, reach, crouch, and twist passim the day.”

Driving quality is besides a must, with a enactment included successful the occupation station that notes candidates person the quality “to question up to 25% of the clip and regular determination driving.” It’s hard to archer if workers would beryllium really grooming the robots during these driving sessions oregon if the driving is someway incidental to the existent training.

What does each of this pay? According to Tesla’s website, it pays “$25.25 – $48.00/hour + currency and banal awards + benefits.” But conscionable arsenic the hours whitethorn beryllium odd, the occupation listing includes a informing that you whitethorn request to enactment weekends and overtime “when needed.” Again, this each seems to suggest Tesla is pushing hard to drawback up connected the robot tech front.

Gizmodo reached retired to Tesla via email but the institution got escaped of its PR section years ago, truthful we’re not going to clasp our enactment astir proceeding back.