The robots didn’t meet an ordinary end.
Figure AI, the US robotics company, decided to retire a large part of its fleet of F.02 humanoids and did so in a style reminiscent of Terminator 2: each machine jumped into a 75-ton electric arc furnace filled with molten steel at a steel mill in Imatra, Finland.
According to the company, the robots were no longer maintainable, and it wanted to destroy them completely so that their custom-designed actuators and other intellectual property would not end up leaking. No foundry in the United States or Mexico agreed to accept machines with lithium-ion batteries, until the Finnish plant said yes. According to media reports, the idea of melting them down came in a message from Arnold Schwarzenegger to CEO Brett Adcock, and the actor ended up appearing in the video published on September 30.
Before the big jump, engineers trained them in San Jose, California, with large air cushions and jumps from a second floor, using the movements of stunt performers as a reference. The robots arrived at a facility they had never seen before and jumped while they were being filmed. Figure says it is not CGI or AI-generated video.