A former safety executive at Figure AI says the company ignored warnings that its humanoid robots posed serious physical danger to people, according to a report surfaced by Bing News.
Robert Gruendel, described as Figure AI's former head of product safety, has filed a federal whistleblower lawsuit against the robotics startup. At the center of his complaint is a striking claim: that the company's robots were, in his words, "powerful enough to fracture a human skull."
The source reports that Gruendel alleges Figure AI ignored deadly safety risks tied to its machines. The lawsuit, according to the report, may hinge on that allegation and the phrase he used to describe the hazard.
Figure AI builds humanoid robots, machines designed to operate in spaces built for people, where a malfunction or miscalculation could put workers and bystanders in harm's way. A head of product safety is typically responsible for spotting exactly these kinds of dangers before a product reaches the real world, which makes a safety chief turning whistleblower notable.
The available source does not include Figure AI's response to the allegations, the specific incidents behind the claim, the court where the suit was filed, or what remedies Gruendel is seeking. Those details are not established in the material at hand.
Why it matters: as humanoid robots move from demos toward factories and workplaces, this case raises a pointed question about whether the companies racing to deploy them are taking the physical safety of the humans around them seriously enough.