If you’re going to have the audacity to name your company “Humane,” people are going to reasonably expect that you’ll be compassionate. If you call an indicator light the “trust light,” people are going to expect the device will be honest with them.
If you’re going to set your own bar that high, you better know you can clear it.
A team with this collective pedigree is smart enough to thoroughly test their own product, so I can’t imagine a reality in which the people at Humane didn’t know about these issues before shipping it. However, if we assume they did know, the story becomes somehow more troubling.
If they knew, why didn’t they just hold the release? If they didn’t want to hold the release, why not tell people about its shortcomings? Did they think people wouldn’t find out?
Just tell people that it doesn’t work every time, but it’s kinda fun to play with regardless.
AI is not actually smart, so what if they just admit that sometimes it spectacularly fails? Then people might lovingly laugh instead of nervously laugh while staring at the $700 hole in their pocket.
At least that would be honest and—dare I say—humane.
Shipping an unfinished product isn’t the end of the world. In fact, I think it’s super cool to ship an unfinished product. But what’s uncool is not telling people that it’s unfinished.
It’s true that all products need to start somewhere, but what you start with has to be good. You may not get the chance to make a version 2.