Hasta la Vista, Figure 02

It was a scene right out of Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

Except it wasn’t science fiction.

Figure AI, one of the leading intelligent humanoid robotics companies, had a problem to solve. It couldn’t decide how to decommission its previous generation of Figure 02 robots. So, it asked the crowd.

Of all people, Arnold Schwarzenegger replied on X, suggesting that Figure AI melt them.

And that’s exactly what Figure AI did. They shipped them off in boxes to Finland, where a team and a 75-ton arc furnace were prepared to enable their demise.

There’s no way to describe it. You’ll have to see it for yourself…

Into the Fiery Pit

I’ve included some short clips below.

The first is of a Figure 02 stepping onto a hook, grasping the chain, and being lowered into the vat knowing of its imminent demise…

Source: Figure AI

Figure AI went so far as to fly out Schwarzenegger to film him on site actually lowering Figure 02 into the molten steel. He even gave the robot a sendoff with an expected “Hasta La Vista, Figure 02.”

But the visuals became more difficult to watch after that. The next self-immolation was a Figure 02 standing on a precipice, peering over the edge into what was bubbling below. He then turns to leap back into the vat of molten steel.

Source: Figure AI

Then even more disconcerting was the robot that got a running start off the platform before flipping into the inferno below.

Source: Figure AI

And then perhaps the most difficult to stomach, a Figure 02 backing up to the edge, leaning back, and ending it all in a fiery explosion upon impact.

Source: Figure AI

I don’t know about you, but I found watching this quite uncomfortable. These humanoids have humanlike movements now and are intelligent. It feels too close for comfort.

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An Elaborate Marketing Stunt?

While we know that they are not sentient (yet), and they were in fact programmed to send themselves off to a fiery death, it still represents some form of end of life.

In product management, this is referred to as EOL. And for tech companies that make hardware, there is always a question of what to do with the prototypes when they are no longer useful.

Store them in a warehouse? Put a few in a museum (eventually)? Throw them in the trash?

In Figure AI’s case, they decided to melt them down… Terminator style. But to what end?

Figure AI decided to take the remains of the Figure 02s and reconstitute them into “Small Artifacts” that are about one-third the scale of a Figure 02 head unit. Anyone can purchase them online for $500. The “Large Artifacts” for $1,900 sold out within hours.

Source: Figure AI

Was it all just a marketing stunt to generate clicks on social media? Or to raise some money selling the remains?

Not at all.

Tactical Decommissioning

While it may look like that, Figure AI was actually making a pragmatic decision. The risk for Figure AI was for a bad actor to get ahold of a Figure 02 for industrial espionage.

No one worries too much about EOL models, as everyone is racing ahead building the next generation, which right now is the Figure 03.

It’s easy to forget about units that are hiding in a warehouse, which also means it is a lot easier for an agent to appropriate one – perhaps an agent of China – for the purpose of reverse engineering the hardware and software.

Figure AI could have decommissioned the Figure 02 units by hand, tearing them down into individual parts and disposing of those critical parts that constitute Figure’s intellectual property.

But that would have been very time-consuming, and also a distraction from the work the Figure team is already doing with Figure 03 – which is in production – and what comes next, Figure 04.

The Figure CEO, Brett Adcock, has said that Figure 04 units will have hands that have human-level dexterity. He has indicated that the company has had a breakthrough and that humanlike hands are the key to achieving the utility and productivity gains that intelligent humanoid robots will bring.

So, melting the Figure 02 population down to metal was the easiest way to destroy the intellectual property, avoid it falling into a competitor’s hands, and eliminate the labor cost associated with tearing them down.

It’s not unlike Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

The T-800 and T-1000 terminator models were eliminated in order to destroy the neural network and the semiconductors that powered it so that they couldn’t be used to build Skynet.

And while we all know that Figure 02 wasn’t alive, at the pace of development that we are seeing right now, it won’t be long before we’re having discussions around consciousness and sentience, and whether or not we need to decommission robots that are not aligned or have gone rogue.

That feeling when watching a Figure 02 leap to its own “death” is just a tinge of what we’ll be grappling with as the humanoids become more intelligent and more central to our lives.

Jeff