California’s combat sports regulator has told a San Francisco start-up to stop putting humans in a cage with its robots. The order comes weeks after one of the company’s steel humanoids, built to look like the original Terminator, sent a YouTuber flying across its octagon in front of a cheering crowd.The California State Athletic Commission sent the cease-and-desist letter on September 30 to REK, short for Robot Entertainment Kombat, over its unsanctioned “Human vs Robot” event on September 18. Chief executive Cix Liv did not sound worried. He posted the letter on X the same day with a short caption: “We made it, boys.”The letter says any boxing or mixed martial arts contest, match or exhibition involving a human in California needs the commission’s approval first. Promoting or taking part in one without a licence, it adds, is a misdemeanour under section 18640 of the state’s Business and Professions Code.Liv has a counterargument ready. He says the law defines a match as one between two persons, and a humanoid is not a person. The state, he says, is welcome to argue otherwise in court.
Frankie LaPenna won two of his three human vs robot fights
The human in question was Frankie LaPenna, a YouTuber with over 9 million followers who is known for videos of himself getting hurt. He fought three robots that night. The first, a smaller Unitree G1, went down within seconds.Then came two modified EngineAI T800s, which REK says stand about 6 feet tall, kick with up to 850 pounds of force and wear a mechanical skull with glowing red eyes. One of them landed a blow that left LaPenna sprawled on the far side of the cage, motorcycle-style protective gear and all. He got back up and shoved the robot to the floor to win.His last opponent, a quicker robot REK calls “Predator”, beat him by getting up every time he dropped it. LaPenna left with an injured hand from punching a metal frame, after signing a waiver that cleared REK if he died.
Every robot in the cage had a human pilot at the controls
None of the robots were fighting on their own. Pilots steered them in real time using VR headsets or a gamepad, much like flying a drone, while AI from REK’s technology partner Reflex Arc kept them balanced and handled trained movements. So every strike aimed at LaPenna was a person’s decision.
California’s combat sports rules were never written for robot opponents
Neither California nor federal law explicitly bans human versus robot fights. The commission said unsanctioned events put the physical and financial wellbeing of everyone involved at risk, and that it would consider fresh guidance as robot technology evolves.That could take time. Combat sports are regulated state by state in the US, and lawyers in the field say most commissions would need new rules before they could shut such events down.REK calls itself a humanoid robot fighting league. It has staged 14 events across nine cities, including private shows at the OpenAI and xAI offices, and says more than 20,000 fights have been played on its simulator across 65 countries. Liv says there are no plans to repeat the human fight.Its next show, the sold-out REK Deathmatch in San Francisco on October 9, was billed as the first fight between humanoids carrying blades. Robots only, this time.
