AI robot company decommissioned its robots ‘Terminator-style’ in a 75-ton vat of molten steel

Figure, a U.S.-based robotics company, decommissioned its old AI robots by making them jump into a 75-ton furnace full of molten steel. According to the company, maintaining its F.02 fleet no longer made sense as its next-generation F.03 is increasing in numbers. However, it said that disassembling its older robots is difficult and time-consuming — they can’t just pass it off to another third party because it contained a lot of proprietary technology, while assigning an internal team to do it would take people off other important projects like the F.04 model that’s in development.

Company CEO Brett Adcock went on to X to help solve this conundrum, asking the social media platform for ideas for “a proper sendoff.” This is where he got an unexpected reply from the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger — “You should melt them.” And they did, as you can see in the video below.

This started an epic journey, from the Figure team training its robots to jump from the second story of its office building onto an airbag, to finding a foundry willing to accept robots with lithium batteries being dumped into a molten vat of steel. While some may think that jumping off a ledge into a vat of molten steel is an easy thing to do, it actually requires some precision, with the company even referencing stunt artists for the movement.

They eventually found a site in Finland willing to accept the robots, which gave them 24 hours and six melts to complete the process. The decommissioning spectacle turned out to be a complete success, with the F.02 AI robots functioning as intended up to the last moment, despite the extreme heat generated by the molten steel and electromagnetic fields generated by the high-voltage electricity that flowed through the three giant graphite electrodes. The resulting metal bars were eventually taken back to the U.S. and have been machined into limited-edition memorabilia commemorating the F.02.

Most of the F.02 fleet has already been melted down and recycled, with only a few remaining in storage at the company’s headquarters. This should give Figure more space for newer robot models without having to worry about its proprietary technology falling into the hands of the competition. The decommissioning process has also given us a real-life Terminator-style ending, with one F.02 robot even filmed holding a thumbs-up sign as it sinks into molten metal. Let’s just hope that we don’t get a Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines sequel to this wild ending for the F.02.