Rizzbot vs IShowspeed: Company behind robot sues influencer for damages

AUSTIN, Texas – An attorney at the center of a bizarre new lawsuit, one that pits a viral AI robot against a popular social media influencer, is speaking out.

“Rizzbot” may be known for entertaining crowds, but the company behind him says a livestream encounter caused serious damage.

The lawyer on the case says the bizarre case raises a lot of questions about AI moving forward.

Rizzbot vs IShowspeed

The backstory:

If you’ve spent any time in Austin lately, you’ve probably seen him. The viral, human-like robot Rizzbot is turning heads and racking up millions of views online.

“There’s so much going on in Austin. So, a lot about festivals and conferences, you know, wherever there’s like people outside congregating where he can interact with people. You know, we’ve seen him everywhere. He’s been a very busy Rizzbot over the past few months,” said Joel Levine, representing Social Robot LLC,.

According to the official Rizzbot website, each robot costs upwards of $15,000 to build. Now, one of them is at the center of a lawsuit filed after a livestream by popular influencer Darren Jason Watkins Jr., better known online as IShowspeed.

“Rizzbot was doing his thing and rizzing, you know, and telling jokes and everything. And Speed became a little agitated,” said Levine.

The entire incident was live-streamed, racking up more than 780,000 views. The video shows Rizzbot teasing Speed, and Speed punching the robot less than two minutes into the stream.

“It kind of resulted in him putting Rizzbot in a headlock. A couple of punches to the face, causing some damage to Rizzbot on one of the beds, and the gears tried to autocorrect because it’s a self-standing robot, so it tried to stand back up. It was pinning him down,” said Levine.

APD confirms it was called to the scene after the incident.

Social Robotics, the company behind Rizzbot, filed a lawsuit against Speed earlier this month.

“There are two types of damage here. There’s the actual damage to the physical property itself; the robot was deemed a total loss, and so that has to be completely replaced, and the programming and everything as well. But also, you know, the big thing here was the value of some big missed opportunities that social robotics lost out on,” said Levine.

Rizzbot also had to cancel an appearance with Mr. Beast and the NFL Today Show as a result.

Levine says the case touches on legal questions Texas lawmakers never imagined.

“When a lot of the laws in Texas were developed, decades, centuries ago, they could not anticipate things like this to happen, right? So, there are a lot of interesting questions going forward in terms of AI, and property damage. What’s the true value of a robot and one that has a program and a personality and social media following?” said Levine.

Levine says Rizzbot is back up and functioning. He even made an appearance on the Jimmy Fallon show.

FOX 7 reached out to Speed’s team for a statement but have not heard back.

APD says the investigation is open and ongoing.