Figure AI, a Humanoid Robot Start - Up backed by big tech companies including Nvidia, has reportedly been sued for firing an employee who raised safety concerns.
According to reports including from CNBC on the 22nd local time, engineer Robert Grundell, who served as head of safety at Figure AI, filed a lawsuit against the company in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California the previous day, claiming that a robot developed by the company is "powerful enough to fracture a human skull."
Grundell's legal team said Grundell was fired in September, "just days after" he raised "the most direct and documented safety concerns."
The legal team said Grundell warned Brett Adcock, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Figure AI, and lead engineer Kyle Edelberg about the robot's lethal capabilities, and also reported that while one robot was experiencing a malfunction, it "left a quarter-inch (about 0.6 cm) deep gouge in a refrigerator door made of steel."
Grundell also said he noted that the product safety plan the company disclosed to investors was scrapped immediately after the investment round closed, expressing concern that "this could be construed as fraud."
The legal team claimed that the management treated Grundell's concerns as an obstacle and used a vague change in business direction as a pretext to fire him.
Grundell requested a jury trial and sought punitive damages along with compensation for economic loss.
In an email statement to CNBC, a Figure AI Spokesperson countered that Grundell was "terminated for poor job performance," saying his claims are false.
Grundell's attorney said in a statement, "This case could be one of the first whistleblower cases related to Humanoid Robot safety," adding, "Grundell hopes that these judicial proceedings will reveal the clear risks to the public posed by the rush-to-market approach for robots."
Figure AI raised funds in an early- last year investment round from prominent tech investors including Nvidia, Microsoft (MS), and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
In an additional investment round in September this year, the company's valuation was assessed at $39 billion (about 57 trillion won), up roughly 15 times from last year.