The cables are there to prevent the robot from damaging stuff during testing. If a human falls, it catches itself, or at worst breaks a wrist and spends a coupl

The cables are there to prevent the robot from damaging stuff during testing. If a human falls, it catches itself, or at worst breaks a wrist and spends a couple weeks healing. Unrestrained robots have far more spectacular failure modes; a falling humanoid typically lands on an outstretched limb and breaks it right in half, setting the project back months and costing huge amounts of money. Or it goes nuts but doesn't fall over immediately, instead flailing around on a short rampage that ends with the robot broken and everything nearby having been whacked by the limbed equivalent of a runaway golf cart. Source: been there, done that, don't tell OSHA. :P