A viral video from Figure AI's robotics lab shows a fleet of its decommissioned F.02 humanoid robots diving into molten steel, an homage to an iconic scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
The footage is absolutely wild.
Figure AI is based in San Jose, California, and its F.02 robots are being replaced by the new F.03 generation. To retire the last of its F.02 fleet, the company hired Terminator star (and former California governor) Arnold Schwarzenegger, consulted with former MythBusters team members, and traveled to a steel plant in Finland with a camera crew. The robots were programmed to autonomously leap into a vat of molten steel in spectacular fashion.
One of the robots was even lowered into the forge on a chain, recreating the famous thumbs-up gesture Schwarzenegger's character makes at the end of the film.
At its San Jose headquarters, the company trained the robots to make the leap, and even practiced with large airbags. But finding a place to perform the stunt proved more difficult.
"None of the metal foundries we contacted in the US and Mexico would let us jump a robot with lithium-ion batteries into their expensive equipment. We even reached out to former MythBusters to help with the search. In the end, the only place in the world we could find willing to take this on was a foundry in Imatra, Finland," the company wrote in a blog post detailing the stunt.
The company isn't letting the now-melted F.02 robots go entirely to waste. The resulting metal was fashioned into limited-edition artifacts that the company is now selling online.
And for anyone wondering whether the footage is real, the company addressed that, too: "In an age of AI-generated footage, it’s worth being clear: we really trained robots to jump autonomously, shipped them to Finland, and had them leap into a vat of molten steel. We hope you enjoy the film."
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