Dec 9, 2025 3 min read Daily Rundown

🤖 Meet My Lawyer

Plus: Hugo’s at the Door, Optimus’s Wizard Exposed

Good Morning, Roboticists!

Today’s story isn’t about innovation moving fast — it’s about reality catching up even faster.

HUMANOIDS

Punch a Robot, Meet Its Lawyer

👀 What’s happening: Streamer IShowSpeed is being sued for allegedly assaulting Rizzbot, a humanoid influencer (with over a million followers) famous for roasting humans and flipping the bird during a live broadcast. The footage shows Speed punching, choking, and slamming the robot to the ground, leaving it with a broken neck module, dead cameras, and a career on hold. Social Robotics, Rizzbot’s creator, filed the lawsuit after failed settlement talks.

🔥 How this hits reality: The internet laughed, then realized the punchline that robots can now file lawsuits, or at least have humans to do it for them. Rizzbot isn’t just hardware; it’s a monetized personality with agents, contracts, and brand value. Damaging one isn’t “breaking a toy,” it’s closer to assaulting a celebrity asset. From now on, “hands off the robot” isn’t a joke, it’s legal advice.

🤖 Key takeaway: You can mock them, stream with them, maybe even date them. But touch a robot the wrong way, and it’ll see you in court.

SURGERY

Da Vinci Keeps the Throne, But Hugo’s at the Door

👀 What’s happening: Medtronic’s long-delayed Hugo robotic surgery system has at last cleared the FDA for urological procedures, ending Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci25-year solo run in soft-tissue robotics. First unveiled in 2019 as a more compact and modular alternative to da Vinci, Hugo has already logged tens of thousands of cases overseas and now enters U.S. operating rooms with official clearance in hand.

🔥 How this hits reality: Let’s be clear that da Vinci isn’t losing sleep. Its army of trained surgeons, installed systems, and service contracts keeps it firmly on top. Hugo, even with Medtronic’s muscle, will mainly target mid-tier hospitals priced out of Intuitive’s ecosystem. Still, the clearance cracks a monopoly once thought untouchable. After six years of trials and regulatory grind, Medtronic proved a second robot can clear the FDA wall, and that alone changes the game.

🤖 Key takeaway: Da Vinci still runs the OR, but Hugo just proved the door isn’t locked forever.

HUMANOIDS

Optimus Falls, and Probably Its Operator Too

Me too Optimus. Me too. pic.twitter.com/CzXQmJUPJx
— Robin (@xdNiBoR) December 7, 2025

👀 What’s happening: At Tesla’s “Autonomy Visualized” event in Miami, an Optimus robot face-planted mid-demo after dropping a few water bottles. The moment it started to fall, its hands darted up to its “face” as if ripping off a VR headset, a gesture every teleoperator knows too well. The clip instantly reignited suspicion that Optimus isn’t quite as “autonomous” as advertised.

🔥 How this hits reality: Let’s be honest, remote control is no scandal anymore. Every major humanoid team, from Figure to Agility, still relies on teleoperation to train motion and safety reflexes, even at "real" event. It’s standard practice. Tesla’s problem wasn’t using a human in the loop; it was letting the human in the loop need an emergency break mid-demo. If you’re going to fake autonomy, at least make sure your operator’s bladder can go the distance.

🤖 Key takeaway: Optimus didn’t malfunction; its pilot just hit “bio mode.”

QUICK HITS

Distalmotion raised $150M to accelerate US adoption of its Dexter surgical robot, especially in the fast-growing ASC market.
Tether joined Generative Bionics’ €70M round to expand its AI-robotics push, as the startup prepares to debut its first humanoid at CES.
AgiBot hit its 5,000-unit milestone, revealing a mixed-fleet lineup as it moves from fast production to proving real large-scale deployment.
U.S. Congress revived the “No Robot Bosses Act” to limit AI-led HR decisions, though the bill remains stalled and contested.
Beckman Coulter launched the Biomek i3 benchtop liquid handler, offering compact, affordable automation for low- to mid-throughput labs.

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