Engineer fired for warning bosses about AI robots “powerful enough to fracture a human skull”

A number of companies are in a race to develop humanoid robots. Adoption of the futuristic technology is expected to speed up in the next decade according to a report earlier this year by Morgan Stanley.

The investment bank forecasts that the market for humanoid robots could exceed $5 trillion by 2050. However, in the rush to bring products to market, one former employee at Figure AI says that he was fired after warning company executives about potential critical risk of injury to humans from the company’s robots.

“Powerful enough to fracture a human skull”

Robert Gruendel, who was the principal robotic safety engineer at Figure AI, was dismissed from his job just days after he raised his concerns in September reported CNBC. For its part, a company spokesperson told the news outlet that Gruendel was fired “poor performance.”

In his lawsuit, filed in a federal court in California, Gruendel says that he warned top executives, including CEO Brett Adcock and chief engineer Kyle Edelberg, that the company’s robots “were powerful enough to fracture a human skull.”

As evidence of the lethal strength of the machines, he states in his lawsuit that one of the robots during a malfunction narrowly missed hitting an employee and “carved a ¼-inch gash into a steel refrigerator door.”

The former Figure safety engineer claims that his emails informing Adcock about safety issues went unanswered on several occasions. Gruendel says that the CEO had begun slowly reducing the frequency of safety meetings long before he was terminated, spacing them out from what were once weekly meetings to eventually quarterly meetings.

His lawsuit also accuses Edelberg of gutting a safety road map that he had prepared for prospective investors this summer, even though it was part of the reason two of them chose to invest in Figure, the same month the company closed its most recent investment round.

The spokesperson for Figure said that Gruendel’s “allegations are falsehoods that Figure will thoroughly discredit in court.”

In September, Figure reached a valuation of $39 billion after securing major investments led by Parkway Venture Capital and Nvidia, one of its main financial backers. The company, which is one of the leaders in the humanoid robot industry, is now 15 times more valuable than it was in early 2024.

Get your game on! Whether you’re into NFL touchdowns, NBA buzzer-beaters, world-class soccer goals, or MLB home runs, our app has it all.

Dive into live coverage, expert insights, breaking news, exclusive videos, and more – plus, stay updated on the latest in current affairs and entertainment. Download now for all-access coverage, right at your fingertips – anytime, anywhere.