Tesla hires over 50 people for Optimus training in motion capture suits
The artificial intelligence of Tesla's humanoid robot Optimus needs to be trained. This requires a lot of movement data.
(Image: Tesla (Screenshot))
Tesla has hired more than 50 people to wear a motion capture suite in 2023 to collect training data for the humanoid robot Optimus. Special requirements are placed on the people. For example, they must be of a certain height and be able to wear a data suit for several hours. The company is currently looking for more full-time employees, as can be seen from a job description on Tesla's career portal.
The job of Data Collection Operator for Tesla's Optimus Bot does not appear to be easy. Anyone who wants to do it has to move around for more than seven hours over a period of around eight hours using a motion capture suite and a VR headset to record predefined movements. This takes place in three shifts over 24 hours. In addition, documentation and reports have to be prepared. Employees receive between 25.25 and 48 US dollars for this. Bonuses and other benefits, such as healthcare, are also paid.
The basic requirement for the job is that the person is between 1.7 and 1.8 m tall, i.e. roughly the size of a Tesla Optimus bot, and fits into the data suit. Ideally, applicants should also be able to tolerate the notorious VR sickness and disorientation symptoms that can occur when wearing the VR glasses.
Data for AI training
Tesla wants to use the data collected during the sessions to train its humanoid robots to perform certain tasks. Similar to self-driving cars, which are trained with real data from a fleet of vehicles, the robot will use human data as training material for the Optimus Bot's AI system.
The robot could then be trained for tasks in factories or in the home, for example. However, this is likely to be very time-consuming and cost-intensive. Animesh Garg, senior researcher at Nvidia Research and robotics professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told Business Insider that several hundred thousand to several million hours of data would have to be recorded just to make the humanoid robots fit for tasks in Tesla's factory. He also anticipates considerable costs for data collection, which could swallow up half a billion dollars. In his opinion, the success of the campaign is also uncertain.
(olb)