San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic’s robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn’t teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
What the robot walkers actually do
The now-deleted ad described four to six hours of walking, with no previous experience required. The dogs used in the experiment were $2,000 machines from Chinese manufacturer Unitree, controllable through a handheld remote or mobile app.
The walkers steer while the robots’ cameras and sensors record the journey. Those demonstrations give Dimensional examples of human navigation to help improve its autonomous systems. The babysitting serves a purpose, even if the trainee occasionally needs carrying.
How the software fits together
Dimensional is developing dimOS, an open-source software platform intended to let AI agents operate different robots through natural-language instructions. The ambition extends beyond robot dogs to humanoids, connecting an agent’s decisions to the machine’s sensors and controls.
Its public repository labels the platform as a prerelease beta. It also documents remote operation through a browser or Meta Quest headset, giving people a way to drive the robots themselves.
When extra intelligence gets in the way
In Anthropic’s July research, every tested language model paired with a trained controller performed worse on familiar simulated object-handling tasks than that controller alone. Some models overruled actions they should’ve accepted.
A robot’s ability to hold a conversation tells you little about whether it’ll finish an errand. Before paying for a future robot helper, ask how often a person needs to step in. The purchase looks less compelling if it comes with a second job.
