(VIDEO) California Orders a Halt to Human-vs-Robot Cage Fights After a San Francisco Bout Left a Man Injured

SAN FRANCISCO — California's athletic commission has ordered a startup to stop staging fights between people and robots in the state, after a Sept. 18 cage match in San Francisco left the human fighter with a hand injury and drew a cease-and-desist letter calling the bout unsanctioned.

The match was promoted as "Human vs. Robot" by REK, short for Robot Entertainment Kombat, which describes itself as "the humanoid robot fighting league." Frankie LaPenna, wearing a helmet, faced a humanoid that a pilot operated through a remote virtual-reality system. The robot, reported to be an EngineAI unit with a Terminator-style head, knocked LaPenna down and drove him into the padded walls of an octagonal cage. A crowd of about 100 watched. LaPenna fought three of the machines, landed punches, and left with a hand injury from hitting a metal frame. The company did not describe the night as a regulated prizefight.

The California State Athletic Commission sent a cease-and-desist letter, which REK's chief executive, Cix Liv, posted on Sept. 30. The letter called the fight unsanctioned and told Liv and the company to stop "holding, promoting or advertising any boxing or mixed martial arts contest match, or exhibition, involving any human" in California without the commission's approval. Promoting or taking part in an unlicensed contest of that kind is a misdemeanor, the letter said. In a statement, the commission said it remains committed to protecting public safety and the integrity of combat sports. "Unsanctioned activity puts the physical and financial well-being of all those involved at risk, and such activity will not be tolerated."

Liv has not accepted the order as covering his event. "The law clearly states that a 'match' is between two persons," he said, and added that regulators were welcome to argue in court that a humanoid is a person. He said the company's goal is a sport in which humanoids fight in an MMA style, and that permission was not required. He has also said, "We're going to democratize MMA so we can essentially experience the blood sport without anyone getting hurt." The hand injury is the fact that sits against that sentence.

The commission's position is that the presence of any human is what triggers its authority, not the nature of the opponent. REK's position is that a robot is not a second person, so the statute does not apply. Those are legal arguments. Neither has been tested in the court Liv invited. The letter is an administrative order. Ignoring it, the commission wrote, is a misdemeanor.

The wider question the bout raised is the one organizers and regulators are already talking past each other about. If the pilot is human and the machine is not autonomous, the event is a remote-controlled exhibition with one person at risk of striking metal. If later machines fight without a pilot, the risk calculation changes and the legal one may not. Companies are developing humanoids that can move and strike on their own. California has not written a rule for that. It has written a rule for any boxing or mixed-martial-arts contest involving a human, and it has told REK to stop holding one. The Sept. 18 fight is on video. The hand injury is reported. The cease-and-desist is public. What a court would call the opponent is not yet decided.