Tesla is Hiring Optimus Robot Trainers: New Opportunities in AI and Robotics
Tesla is hiring individuals to help train its humanoid Optimus robot by wearing motion capture suits and mimicking actions the robot is expected to perform. The role is listed as a “Data Collection Operator” on Tesla’s career site. It offers up to $48 per hour. It involves walking for over seven hours a day, carrying up to 30 pounds, and wearing a VR headset for extended periods. Applicants must be between 5’7″ and 5’11″ tall, matching Optimus’ projected height.
Tesla has hired over 50 workers for this role over the past year. Motion capture is a common and cost-effective method for training robots to perform human-like movements. In contrast, Tesla’s approach is unique in its scale. While Optimus has been seen performing tasks in videos, experts believe it could require millions of hours of data before the robot is fully ready for factory work.
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Animesh Garg is a senior researcher at Nvidia Research. He estimates that data collection for Optimus could cost half a billion dollars, with no guarantee of success. This extensive training is typical for humanoid robots and their AI systems.
Elon Musk has set a goal for “genuinely useful” bots to be in production next year, but he acknowledges that the timeline is uncertain. Currently, Optimus appears to be at a similar development stage as competing robots from Boston Dynamics, Figure, and Apptronik, which other vehicle manufacturers are also testing.
