I don’t much like the farewell Figure arranged for F.02.
According to Figure’s own account, the company shipped robots to Finland, trained them to jump autonomously into molten steel, and turned the event into a retirement film. It explicitly says this really happened: the footage wasn’t AI-generated.
My first thought was: does the goodbye have to look like this?
Old machines wear out. Parts fail, repairs get expensive, and the next generation gets better. Figure’s reasons are practical, too: maintaining the old fleet no longer makes sense, dismantling each machine would take up engineers’ time, and the proprietary hardware needs protecting.
I can understand that. I don’t think every robot needs to be kept forever.
But disposing of old equipment and deliberately training it to jump into molten steel for a farewell film are two different choices. The reasons for the first haven’t convinced me that the second was necessary.
I’d rather see how it worked. What did its first successful attempt look like? What went wrong along the way, and how did the engineers fix it? What marks did years of use leave on its parts? How much of what makes the new model smarter and more capable was learned by trying things with this one?
Figure has kept a few F.02 robots at its headquarters and is making commemorative objects from the melted metal. So I’m not saying it has preserved nothing. I’m simply more interested in those machines’ working lives than in the spectacle at the end.
Whether the robot itself feels anything is a question this film can’t answer. What interests me here is how we choose to tell its story.
And that gets me thinking about the robots that might one day live in our homes.
Imagine one has been there for years. It helps with the laundry, puts things away, knows where the cups belong and which battered old toy must never go in the bin. Then it breaks down. It can’t be repaired. The company offers a replacement.
The new one might be better at everything. Someone in that house might still ask: will it remember any of the old things?
I think manufacturers ought to take that question seriously, well before it comes up.
Which routines and settings can move to the replacement? Which records can I keep? What happens to the photos and household information on the old machine? If the company shuts down, what will I still have access to?
Copying the data won’t settle whether it’s still the same companion. But people shouldn’t reach the day of a replacement only to discover that none of what they wanted to keep can come with them.
This matters especially for companies that give their robots personalities and sell them as companions. I’d like to see the same care go into repairs, replacements and the end of a service as goes into introducing a new product. You can’t invite something into someone’s daily life and then act as though they’re being silly when they grow attached to it.
The farewell I have in mind is fairly ordinary.
Tell us what the robot did over the years. Show us some of the work it made easier. Repair it if that’s possible. If it isn’t, help the household make the change. Keep what they want to keep, clear what needs to be cleared, and handle the machine safely. Save a few photos and a little of its history.
Then let it stop.
Its work is done. It doesn’t need to give us one last memorable shot.