A few Thursdays in the past, I awoke at almost 4:30 a.m. to a dizzying Instagram DM.
Rizzbot, a common humanoid robotic with greater than 1 million TikTok followers and extra than half one million followers on Instagram, had despatched me a photograph: he was flipping me off.
No phrases. No rationalization. Only a robotic with its center finger raised.
Though I used to be shocked, a sinking feeling meant that I may guess why. A couple of weeks in the past, Rizzbot — or the one that runs the account — and I chatted a couple of potential story. I discovered the account fascinating: a humanoid strolling the streets of Austin sporting Nike dunks and a cowboy hat. It’s identified for roasting, but additionally flirting and having a very good time. The title Rizz comes from the Gen Z slang phrase rizz for charisma.
I used to be intrigued by the rising recognition of the account. Folks are normally uncomfortable with humanoids. There are privateness considerations and job displacement fears. On-line, individuals sling slurs at them, most notably calling them “clankers.” Within the robotics world, in the meantime, specialists are debating what they are going to be finest suited to do.
I noticed Rizzbot as a task mannequin making individuals really feel snug interacting with a humanoid.
Rizzbot agreed to an interview, so I began reaching out to specialists to debate the way forward for humanoids in preparation for a narrative. Two weeks after my preliminary DM with Rizzbot, I instructed it I’d lastly ship it some interview questions on the next Monday or Tuesday.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
However life occurred, and I missed my very own deadline. I was lastly ready to ship the questions very first thing Thursday a.m., and I assumed, No large deal.
Too late. Within the wee hours that night time, Rizzbot despatched that photograph. Message clear: You broke your phrase, so eff off.
I didn’t quit. I apologized to the robotic (or to its human?) for the delay and promised I’d ship the questions very first thing throughout workplace hours. However when I attempted a couple of hours later, I was met with “user not found.”
The robotic had blocked me.
Did I set off a fail-safe?
My pals thought it was hilarious that I used to be flipped off and blocked by Rizzbot, since for weeks, all I spoke about was how excited I used to be to do that story.
“LOL Rizzbot roasted you,” one good friend texted me.
“YOU ARE BEEFING WITH A ROBOT LOLOLOL,” one other stated. I reached out to Rizzbot on TikTok, a transfer one good friend referred to as determined. However what else may I do? I had pitched the story to my editor, spent hours researching, and — regardless of this beef — Rizzbot would nonetheless be fascinating to TechCrunch’s tech-loving readers.
Whereas my pals have been laughing, I entered a state of gloom. Not solely was my story useless, however I used to be additionally now the woman who bought blocked by a dancing robotic.
My colleague Amanda Silberling supplied to assist me. She reached out to the Rizzbot account to ask why I used to be blocked. Rizzbot gave a curt response: “Rizzbot blocks like he rizzes — smooth, confident, and with zero remorse.” It then despatched her the identical center finger photograph it despatched me. I thought, “Wow, I wasn’t even particular sufficient for a distinctive flip off.“
However then, one good friend supplied a terrifying thought I hadn’t even thought-about. “It wasn’t a human response. I’m scared for you.” It appears I had already made my first robotic enemy, and the AI revolution has solely simply begun.
Or did I? Was I actually beefing with a human?
I came upon that Rizzbot’s title is definitely Jake the Robotic.
Its proprietor is an nameless YouTuber and biochemist, in line with studies. The robotic itself is a commonplace Unitree G1 Mannequin, and anybody can purchase one for $16,000 to over $70,000.
Rizzbot was educated by Kyle Morgenstein, a PhD pupil at UT Austin’s robotic laboratory. He labored alongside a group for round three weeks, educating the robotic how you can dance and transfer limbs. Whereas a lot of the robotic’s habits is pre-programmed, it’s operated by a distant management, with its true proprietor, apparently not Morgenstein, close by commanding it.
If I needed to guess how the tech behind the robotic works — after speaking with Malte F. Jung, an affiliate professor at Cornell College who studied info sciences — somebody triggers the robotic’s behaviors, and an image is taken of whoever is interacting with the robotic, run by means of ChatGPT or another LLM, and a text-to-speech perform is then used to roast or flirt with the individual.
“The robot turns the script around of people abusing robots,” Jung instructed me. “Now the robot gets to abuse people. The product here is the performance.”
Morgenstein instructed different retailers that the precise proprietor of Rizzbot simply likes to entertain individuals, likes to indicate the enjoyment that humanoids are able to bringing.
It’s unclear who runs the Rizzbot social accounts, although when Rizzbot despatched that photograph to Silberling, it additionally despatched an error message — most likely an accident — about being out of GPU reminiscence. The message indicated that an AI agent might be concerned in working that account and is perhaps auto-generating DM responses. It additionally indicated that Rizzbot solely has 48GB of reminiscence.
“What makes you confident it was ever a person?” my coder good friend requested me concerning the Instagram account supervisor.
Within the age of AI, somebody able to coaching a robotic is probably succesful of connecting an LLM to Instagram DMs. My block may even have been a fail-safe, my coder good friend stated, that means I routinely triggered it myself by DM’ing within the early hours — even when it was a reply.
However there are some clues {that a} human is concerned in working Rizzbot’s social media: There have been typos in its preliminary DM reply to me once I first requested for an interview.
Nonetheless, except Rizzbot tells me if his social media supervisor is one other bot (which appears unlikely given our beef), I will probably by no means know. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
“If they got $50,000 for a bot and a couple thousand for a 48GB memory machine, I wouldn’t put anything past ‘em,” my coder good friend identified. “They’re clearly committed to the bit.”
It’s nonetheless robotic mind rot
Rizzbot’s TikTok web page alone has racked up greater than 45 million views. One video reveals Rizzbot chasing individuals within the streets, whereas one other sees it working right into a pole and falling in the course of the road. A viral video, presumably altered by AI, reveals Rizzbot being run over by a automobile.
“It seems hilarious, honestly,” one founder good friend instructed me, calling the viral movies “robot brain rot.” He stated the AI is rudimentary, however the robotic’s premise is a “funny intermingling” of web dank — or absurdist — humor, and the lightheartedness that a lot of social media is lacking today. “It interacts with people in a novel way.”
My Rizzbot rabbit gap nonetheless had me considering, although, concerning the function of humanoids in our society. Each sci-fi film I’ve ever watched — from “Blade Runner” to “I, Robot” got here flooding again to me. How scared ought to I be now that I’ve made my first humanoid enemy?
“Performance seems to be really the big use case for these kinds of robots,” Jung instructed me, including that Rizzbot was “like a modern version of street performance with a hand puppet.”
“Often, hand puppets are snarky,” he continued.
Other than Rizzbot, he talked about the Spring Pageant efficiency in China, the place humanoids carried out people dance alongside people, and in San Francisco, in the meantime, individuals head to the boxing ring to observe robots trade jabs.
“Robots will become the primary mass market entertainers, show performers, dancers, singers, comedians, and companions,” Dima Gazda, the founding father of the robotics firm Esper Bionics, instructed me, including that people will grow to be area of interest, prime expertise. “As robots gain grace and emotional intelligence, they’ll blend into performances and interactive experiences better than humans.”
Fortunately, proper now, dancing robots appear onerous to scale en masse, in line with Jen Apicella, govt director on the Pittsburgh Robotics Community. So I don’t have to fret about this beef escalating to, say, a legion of dancing, rizzing robots bodily displaying up at my doorstep. Not that such a thought crossed my thoughts.
It’s now been over every week since I used to be blocked, and I discover myself reminiscing on the enjoyment I discovered watching Rizzbot chase individuals within the streets. My favourite video confirmed a girl twerking on Rizzbot. A crowd fashioned across the spectacle; individuals appeared genuinely entertained, itching, maybe, for their personal second to twerk on a robotic.
I all the time joked to my pals that I wished to maintain robots on my facet in case the revolution got here. However at the same time as I wrote this article, I discovered myself nearly in one other AI beef — this time with Meta AI, which I had by no means used earlier than. I by chance began a dialog with Meta AI whereas searching for my outdated conversations with Rizzbot on Instagram.
Meta’s bot replied, “Yoo, what’s good fam? You callin’ me Rizzbot? 🤣 What’s poppin’?”
I determined it was time to log out.
