Walking robots had only draft safety rules in 2026, as robots at shows in China hurt people
Safety rules assume robots can't fall over; one for walking robots is still a draft. Robots at Chinese shows hurt a spectator and a child.
Today’s safety standards for factory robots and driverless warehouse vehicles assume machines that do not fall over. A walking humanoid can tip over if it loses balance or power. ISO, the international standards body, began drafting a standard for industrial robots that must actively keep their balance, ISO 25785-1, in May 2025. In early 2026 it was still a working draft, with publication expected in late 2026 or 2027. Roboticist Rodney Brooks advises staying at least 3 metres from full-size walking humanoids, because of the energy they carry when they fall.
The first reported injuries came at public shows, not in factories. The OECD’s AI Incidents Monitor records that in early February 2026 a humanoid at a demonstration in Chengdu collided with and injured an elderly spectator. In March 2026 a robot dancing in a shopping mall in Shaanxi province struck a child in the face, apparently without detecting the child, and kept performing. At the World Humanoid Robot Games in August 2026, ESPN reported that many robots crashed and one caught fire.
Inside the industry, Figure AI’s former head of product safety, Robert Gruendel, sued the company in November 2025. He alleges he was fired days after warning executives that its robots were strong enough to fracture a human skull. He says a malfunctioning robot cut a quarter-inch gash into a steel fridge door. Figure says he was dismissed for poor performance and that it will contest the claims in court.
What it means
Humanoid robots are already performing near the public, at shows and in shopping centres, before agreed safety rules for them exist. Until a standard is finished, there is no common rule for how close people should get or how a falling robot must behave. So far the reported injuries happened at public events, not in workplaces.
Caveats
- We found no report of a humanoid injuring a worker in a factory or warehouse. Few humanoids do such work yet, so that is limited reassurance.
- OECD incident entries are compiled from press reports, which did not say how serious the injuries were.
- The Figure claims are allegations in a lawsuit and had not been tested in court as far as we could find.
- Brooks’s 3-metre distance is his own advice, not part of any standard.