H ave you ever wanted to hang out with a dog with no fur, no face and a chip in its shoulder? If so, I suggest you head to San Francisco, where a startup called Dimensional has been paying people $20 (£15) an hour to walk four-legged robot dogs . This isn’t because the dogs need the exercise – it is because the company needs the training data. As reported in the New York Times, the goal is to develop “operating systems that can integrate with AI agents so the machines can act more independently”.

What exactly will these machines do when they can act more independently? The founder of Dimensional insists they will help people. They might carry groceries home, for example, which is certainly something my tiny chihuahua-mix is incapable of.

While it is nice to think that robo dogs are all going to be very good boys, there is a darker side to the industry.…