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Friday, May 13, 2016

Google Will Pay You $20.00 An Hour To Test Its Self-Driving Cars

Google Will Pay You $20.00 An Hour To Test Its Self-Driving Cars
You’ll need a bachelor’s degree to supervise Google’s autonomous cars.
The race to replace human drivers with robots is on, even if most people are terrified by the concept. Uber C.E.O. Travis Kalanick has spoken glowingly of soon operating a fully autonomous fleet. Lyft and G.M. want to bring self-driving electric taxis to the road as early as next year. Even Apple wants in on the action, making a $1 billion investment in Chinese Uber rival Didi as it works toward its own autonomous vehicle. Google, meanwhile, is well into the trial phase of the coming transportation revolution: its self-driving cars are already being tested in several cities across the United States, including Austin, Texas; Kirkland, Washington; and Google’s hometown, Mountain View, California. Earlier this year, Google announced it would be planting its self-driving-car flag in Arizona. The state’s arid, desert climate would be a suitable test for its autonomous vehicles. Now, if you live in the Chandler, Arizona, area, you can apply to be the tester sitting inside a self-driving Google vehicle.

Google is hiring “vehicle safety specialists” to sit behind the wheel of its autonomous cars, to supervise and make sure nothing goes wrong, and to take over if something does, The Arizona Republic reports. “The role of test driver is so new that there isn’t a particular type of person that we look for,” said Brian Torcellini,head of operations of Google’s self-driving-car testing program. “We’ve hired people from all types of backgrounds, from English teachers to orbital welders.”

Applicants, Google stipulates, must have a bachelor’s degree, a clean criminal history and driving record, and the ability to type 40 words per minute (this is a tech company, after all). Employees will commit to 12-to-24-month contracts, driving cars for six to eight hours a day, and receiving $20 an hour in exchange. 
Aside from making sure Google’s self-driving cars aren’t responsible for wreaking havoc on the roads of Arizona, drivers will also be tasked with giving “concise written and oral feedback to the engineering team.” The world may be rushing headlong into a driverless future that eliminates millions of jobs, so local Arizonans may as well get in on the action while they can. The rest of us will be training robots to take our own jobs soon enough.

Maya Kosoff writes about tech for VF.com, with a focus on start-ups and venture capital.

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