Dimensional Pays $20 an Hour to Walk Robot Dogs in San Francisco

Why walk a robot

Dimensional is building an open-source operating system for robots. Founder Stash Pomichter wants to connect it to AI agents so people can give robots spoken or written commands, much as they already do with AI assistants. The goal is for machines to handle physical chores such as carrying heavy boxes or groceries.

Walkers steer the dog with a controller or a mobile app while its cameras and sensors record everything. Pomichter calls that footage "ground truth": real examples of a competent operator handling streets, obstacles and crowds. Dimensional then compares it with how an AI agent performs when controlling the same robot.

The gap is large. "Agents are still very bad at controlling hardware," Pomichter said, adding that humans remain necessary in the process. Language models can handle on-screen tasks reasonably well, but guiding a four-legged machine through the physical world is far harder.

Hardware and ambitions

Pomichter says the company has bought more than 100 robot dogs and 50 humanoid robots from manufacturers in the US, China and Germany. The latest dogs are from Unitree and cost about $2,000 each. They ship ready to be driven with a controller or app, leaving Dimensional free to focus on software.

Long-term targets include factories, data centers, construction sites and security work. Pomichter has already programmed one dog to patrol the office at night, texting him if it spots someone after midnight so he can check the cameras.

Putting AI agents into physical bodies makes some people uneasy. A man visited Dimensional's office and sent threatening messages to an employee, claiming the dogs would be used as weapons; the company reported him to police. Pomichter said more such incidents are possible and that the company "may need more patrol dogs".