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SF startup is testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims

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Re: SF startup is testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims

#21

Post by jfengel »

TZubiri wrote: post #14

Can any lawyer clear this up for me? If the company ends up having no commercial success and the lawsuits for damages rack up, can they just close the company file for bankruptcy and face no consequences? Or is there some civil or criminal risk to this behaviour?

Officers of the company can be at risk under certain very poorly defined circumstances. Basically, you have to prove that they personally were at fault and were just using the company as a legal cover for their misdeeds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil

If this were happening in the real world, they would have to personally back some of the corporate debts before banks would lend them money. But this is Silicon Valley, where banks and VCs just give away money to their buddies.

Re: SF startup is testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims

#22

Post by nxobject »

htrp wrote: post #4

>Donovan alleges that employees of the Bot Company(opens in new tab) rented his home “under false pretenses” to conduct prototype testing on robots they’re training to do household chores. >A refrigerator shelf was cracked, and a broken glass or dish had been left in the garbage disposal. A wooden nightstand drawer was chipped. Cups and plates were in the wrong places. It looked like the furniture had been moved arou…

> “Sorry :( Did my best!” said a pithy message the group left on a whiteboard on his scuffed-up dining table.

Well, no wonder people don't have faith in the people selling AI.

Re: SF startup is testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims

#24

Post by ssl-3 »

fjni wrote: post #13

> Founded by alums of Tesla and the autonomous vehicle company Cruise, the San Francisco startup has received hundreds of millions in venture capital funding and is valued at $2 billion Stop outsourcing the cost of your vision to the rest of society. Especially when it’s peanuts to you and meaningful to, in this case, the host of what they call an apartment and you seem to think is a test course.

I mean, it's good that they're testing things in different places. Environments vary.

But hundreds of millions sounds like enough money to get some industrial or dead commercial space (even in/around SF) and outfit it to be like an apartment. Or six different ones, and six others two weeks from now, and two weeks after that. The cost of the space and the carpenters/painters/drywallers/handymen/managers/whatevers would seem to be something of such relative insignificance that it doesn't even show up on the budgetary radar.

Re: SF startup is testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims

#25

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ssl-3 wrote: post #24
fjni wrote: post #13

> Founded by alums of Tesla and the autonomous vehicle company Cruise, the San Francisco startup has received hundreds of millions in venture capital funding and is valued at $2 billion Stop outsourcing the cost of your vision to the rest of society. Especially when it’s peanuts to you and meaningful to, in this case, the host of what they call an apartment and you seem to think is a test course.

I mean, it's good that they're testing things in different places. Environments vary. But hundreds of millions sounds like enough money to get some industrial or dead commercial space (even in/around SF) and outfit it to be like an apartment. Or six different ones, and six others two weeks from now, and two weeks after that. The cost of the space and the carpenters/painters/drywallers/handymen/managers/whatevers woul…

They want realistic randomness in the apartment layouts. This is a quick, effective way to get that. If they were honest with the hosts, it wouldn’t even be a bad idea.

Re: SF startup is testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims

#27

Post by s5300 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #10
htrp wrote: post #4

>Donovan alleges that employees of the Bot Company(opens in new tab) rented his home “under false pretenses” to conduct prototype testing on robots they’re training to do household chores. >A refrigerator shelf was cracked, and a broken glass or dish had been left in the garbage disposal. A wooden nightstand drawer was chipped. Cups and plates were in the wrong places. It looked like the furniture had been moved arou…

It's exactly this ethos, the "move fast and break things", and oh, we don't give a fuck about who/what we damage in the process - careless people indeed. I am someone who came of age during an incredibly hopeful time about how technology could be a force for good. The silicon valley ethos at present is totally morally bankrupt and rotten to the core.

[dead]

Re: SF startup is testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims

#28

Post by tclancy »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #10
htrp wrote: post #4

>Donovan alleges that employees of the Bot Company(opens in new tab) rented his home “under false pretenses” to conduct prototype testing on robots they’re training to do household chores. >A refrigerator shelf was cracked, and a broken glass or dish had been left in the garbage disposal. A wooden nightstand drawer was chipped. Cups and plates were in the wrong places. It looked like the furniture had been moved arou…

It's exactly this ethos, the "move fast and break things", and oh, we don't give a fuck about who/what we damage in the process - careless people indeed. I am someone who came of age during an incredibly hopeful time about how technology could be a force for good. The silicon valley ethos at present is totally morally bankrupt and rotten to the core.

Same. Growing up Gen X, I always thought robots being used for evil would be cool dystopian dictatorships that would try to grind me under its boot but I would resist. Instead it’s just twerps who are so terminally online they can’t fathom other people seem to have feelings.

Now I’m getting even angrier imagining the email that went around internally on how to spin this and why it was a short term loss but will be for the long term good. Of trying to kill off the idea of cleaning people and then jacking up rates.

Re: SF startup is testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims

#30

Post by DrewADesign »

fjni wrote: post #13

> Founded by alums of Tesla and the autonomous vehicle company Cruise, the San Francisco startup has received hundreds of millions in venture capital funding and is valued at $2 billion Stop outsourcing the cost of your vision to the rest of society. Especially when it’s peanuts to you and meaningful to, in this case, the host of what they call an apartment and you seem to think is a test course.

Nobody in this startup landscape gives a shit about anybody or anything that isn’t, at that very moment, contributing to their product development, market share, or raising capital. Even then, they only give a shit if they can’t avoid it and still get what they want. The second they are no longer useful, they’re thrown out like a bag of moldy tangerines. Morally bankrupt “leaders” employing people too inexperienced to know better or too disempowered to change anything.
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