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You might think of Tesla as America’s largest electric car maker, but that’s not really how the company thinks of itself anymore. Instead, Tesla TSLA-0.55% boss Elon Musk is determined to turn the automaker into a tech and artificial intelligence company, hence his intense focus on self-driving cars and robots. Now, after slashing its workforce across America, the company is looking for new employees who can pretend to be robots in order to train the algorithms that will power its future humanoid machines.
The approach is similar to how Tesla programs its Autopilot system, with engineers training the algorithm to recognize and respond to things like crosswalks and parked police cars. Now, Tesla wants to do the same for its robots by paying people to pretend to be a robot for the day, reports Business Insider:
The role, which has the title “Data Collection Operator,” requires workers to walk along test routes and perform designated tasks while wearing a motion-capture suit and a virtual reality headset for more than seven hours per day, according to the job description from Tesla’s Careers page. In addition to collecting data, workers are also expected to analyze the information they’ve gathered, write daily reports on it, as well as work on some minor tasks related to their equipment and its software.
It also has very specific height requirements and calls for people between five foot, seven inches and five foot, eleven inches. Christian Hubicki, a roboticist out of Florida A&M University, said Tesla is likely looking for individuals who will not only fit into the specific suits, but will also have similar sizing to the robot, which Musk has said will clock in around five foot, eight inches.
Over the past year, the company has reportedly hired “dozens of workers” to train the humanoid robot, which it calls Optimus. The role reportedly pays as much as $48 per hour and required employees to wear motion-capture suits, like they do in the movies, as well as VR headsets “for long stretches of time,” reports BI.
The hiring spree for mo-cap fans marks a stark contrast to the waves of layoffs Tesla was announcing at the start of this year when it cut job listings, sacked staff and even slashed internship opportunities.
A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik’s The Morning Shift.