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Rigged demos are everywhere. I raised a few million in VC with a rigged demo and then after the investor was on my board was really wrestling with how to tell t

by paggle 7y ago

Rigged demos are everywhere. I raised a few million in VC with a rigged demo and then after the investor was on my board was really wrestling with how to tell them and readjust their expectations. Halfway into my first sentence they said “I know they’re all like that. How much of it was fake?” And then we moved on from there.

jkestner 7y ago
And what part is rigged? In the case of this food printer, sure I suppose it should be able to actually do what it claims is its breakthrough. But if I make a prototype of, say, a wallet that gives you haptic feedback to reflect your money moving digitally, is it rigged if it’s not currently in a manufacturable form, tethered to the lab somehow? No, because it was designed to 1) demonstrate a new user interface, and 2) spark conversation about the effects of dematerializing currency. Sometimes missed in talk of what research deserves to be funded, is that a valuable function of the Media Lab is to conduct the flow of ideas from science fiction to reality. And the projects fall all along that spectrum.
- prairiecat 7y ago
  That's a rather slippery slope... While I do agree that producing thought-provoking technical demos has some (perhaps considerable) merit, the Media Lab still presents themselves as a research institute, not some creative agency making conceptual mockups/videos. When something comes out of the Media Lab (or any other MIT-affiliated organization) the expectation will be that even if the ideas may not be workable immediately, the biggest technical/scientific hurdles have been overcome, i.e., they're not pure science fiction. MIT has built up reputation and goodwill so the public gives them benefit of the doubt. Presenting half-baked, unworkable demos as research is to take advantage of (and exhaust) that goodwill, painstakingly cultivated over decades by the entire MIT community.

by paggle 7y ago

jkestner 7y ago

And what part is rigged? In the case of this food printer, sure I suppose it should be able to actually do what it claims is its breakthrough. But if I make a prototype of, say, a wallet that gives you haptic feedback to reflect your money moving digitally, is it rigged if it’s not currently in a manufacturable form, tethered to the lab somehow? No, because it was designed to 1) demonstrate a new user interface, and 2) spark conversation about the effects of dematerializing currency. Sometimes missed in talk of what research deserves to be funded, is that a valuable function of the Media Lab is to conduct the flow of ideas from science fiction to reality. And the projects fall all along that spectrum.

prairiecat 7y ago
That's a rather slippery slope... While I do agree that producing thought-provoking technical demos has some (perhaps considerable) merit, the Media Lab still presents themselves as a research institute, not some creative agency making conceptual mockups/videos. When something comes out of the Media Lab (or any other MIT-affiliated organization) the expectation will be that even if the ideas may not be workable immediately, the biggest technical/scientific hurdles have been overcome, i.e., they're not pure science fiction. MIT has built up reputation and goodwill so the public gives them benefit of the doubt. Presenting half-baked, unworkable demos as research is to take advantage of (and exhaust) that goodwill, painstakingly cultivated over decades by the entire MIT community.