A video that went viral this week shows a humanoid robot at Haidilao's Cupertino, California location erupting into a high-energy dance routine that scattered plates and chopsticks across the dining floor — requiring three staff members to restrain it.

The robot, believed to be an AgiBot X2, is deployed at the Main Street Cupertino restaurant as an entertainment feature. It normally performs tame greeting routines — waving, making heart shapes, offering high-fives. But this time, someone accidentally pressed what an employee described as the "crazy dance" button, triggering a far more aggressive choreography in a tight space.

The result: the robot windmilled its arms, knocked over tableware, and spread sauce across nearby surfaces — all while wearing an orange apron that read "I'm good."

Staff had to physically wrestle the bot under control, with one employee visibly navigating the robot's remote-control app mid-struggle. Per the Mercury News, actual damage was limited to "a few spilled sauces." No injuries were reported.

The Kill Switch Problem

The incident sparked debate online about safety design in public-facing robots. Commenters pointed out a glaring oversight: there was no visible emergency stop button. Instead, stopping the robot required accessing a smartphone app — not a practical option when ducking flying arms.

"Why isn't there a big red power off button on its back?" one Reddit user asked, a sentiment widely echoed across social media.

What It Reveals

The Haidilao incident exposes a gap between robot deployment speed and safety design. The root cause was human error, but the inability to quickly stop the robot once it went haywire is a product problem, not a user problem. Haidilao has not issued an official statement. The robot has since returned to its routine near the restaurant's front door.