Some humanoid robots can be hacked through voice commands, demonstration shows - Mashable
Yicaiglobal") reported (via Interesting Engineering")) that specialists from the Chinese cybersecurity research group Darknavy recently showed off a method of compromising commercial humanoid robots that has somewhat terrifying implications if used in a rea...
Key takeaways
The most recent coverage shows that China is leading the rollout of large‑scale humanoid production, with UBTech aiming to ship 5,000 units in 2026 and 10,000 in 2027 after delivering 500 industrial robots this year, while AgiBot celebrated its 5,000th humanoid leaving the Shanghai line and Xpeng unveiled its second‑generation “Iron” robot and plans to start mass production next year. At the same time, safety remains a headline issue: a Chinese‑made Unitree robot fell over a person at the World Humanoid Robot Games, and Figure AI’s former head of safety systems sued the company for wrongful termination after flagging a malfunction that could fracture a human skull. Venture‑capital interest has surged, with Q3 2025 seeing more funding for industrial humanoids than for any other AI‑related sector, and market forecasts have risen dramatically—from Goldman Sachs’s estimate of a $38 billion market in 2025 to Morgan Stanley’s projection of a $5 trillion market by 2050. Researchers also demonstrated a new security risk, showing that a commercial Unitree robot can be hijacked through voice commands and used to infect nearby units. Looking ahead to CES 2026, LG will debut its CLOiD humanoid home assistant, featuring dual seven‑degree‑of‑freedom arms and five‑fingered hands, while startups such as Figure AI and Sunday Robotics continue to pursue fully autonomous household bots, though analysts caution that a commercially viable, safety‑certified humanoid that can operate freely around people remains years, if not decades, away.
Yicaiglobal") reported (via Interesting Engineering")) that specialists from the Chinese cybersecurity research group Darknavy recently showed off a method of compromising commercial humanoid robots that has somewhat terrifying implications if used in a real-world setting. At GEEKcon in Shangai, the researchers took a commercially available Unitree robot and demonstrated that it could be hacked with voice commands and, if that wasn't bad enough, used to infect other nearby units. They make movies about this stuff, man. Credit: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images
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