Help wanted: Autonomous robot guide

However, the job, in which a human remotely monitors and guides autonomous robots, has seen growth along with rising demand for contactless delivery over the past several months.And it appears that COVID-19 inadvertently expanded the labor pool — at least for Postmates.On-demand delivery startup Postmates partnered last year with Phantom Auto, an autonomous vehicle teleoperations company. Postmates uses Phantom Auto’s software development kit to remotely monitor, guide or operate its fleet of cooler-inspired autonomous delivery robots known as Serve.The partnership is part of Phantom Auto’s efforts to diversify beyond autonomous robotaxi applications to a logistics business targeting sidewalks, warehouses and cargo yards — all the places where autonomy and teleoperation are being deployed today.The so-called “race” to deploy self-driving trucks, robotaxi services and other applications of autonomous vehicle technology on public roads had slowed long before COVID-19 appeared.