That Humanoid Fighting Robot Startup on Van Ness Just Got a Cease and Desist From the State

After a video went viral of an obviously dangerous cage match between a human and a humanoid robot, California state officials have ordered San Francisco-based Robot Entertainment Kombat to cease all such unlicensed cage fights.

Robot Entertainment Kombat (REK), which just opened a storefront on Van Ness in July, is arguably one of the more bro-ishly frightening and dystopian developments on the local AI scene. The company had been marketing robot-on-robot fights for entertainment purposes, but then they got influencer Frankie LaPenna to don some (fairly minimal?) protective gear and have a cage fight last month with a six-foot-tall, Terminator-style robot.

To save you the viewing if you haven't clicked play already or haven't seen this on your feed, LaPenna gets his ass kicked, quite literally — every time the robot kicks he goes flying and it is nowhere near a fair fight.

LaPenna is best known for goofy stunt content on TikTok, and for going on America's Got Talent to pop some balloons with his big ass.

And in addition to the fight seen above, LaPenna also fought an REK robot called The Predator, which is allegedly made of "solid steel," and he does slightly better it looks like but still get his ass kicked in the end. (REK apparently claimed that LaPenna won two out of three of his matches that night, but did he? It kind of feels like we all lost something here.)

Needless to stay, state officials are not too happy about this new form of entertainment. As Tom's Hardware reported over the weekend, REK received a cease-and-desist letter from the California State Athletic Commission following the September 18 cage matches.

The letter, which REK CEO Cix Liv proudly shared on Xitter, orders REK to stop "holding, promoting, or advertising any boxing or mixed martial arts contest match or exhibition, involving any human in the State of California without the prior approval of the State Athletic Commission."

Not sure if that throws any wrench in the future event plans of REK, or if maybe they were hoping for this kind of publicity all along. Since going up two weeks ago, the YouTube video above has garnered 8.2 million views.

Maybe that's enough to sell some robots, and/or sell some tickets to future robot-vs-robot matches.

Next up: We may be seeing new laws being written about when a humanoid robot is allowed to drop-kick or mortally injure an intruder in one's home, once more people start buying more of these things.

Previously: SF Fighting Robot Company to Open Gym, Storefront on Van Ness This Summer