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It's not a scam. A scam is a deliberate deception. Engineers working on this are genuinely trying to solve the problem.

by dqpb 4y ago

iancmceachern 4y ago
I agree with your comment, there are lots of folks making real progress in this space and there are secondary industries that benefit from things like lidar which has gotten way better in large part to this work. Playing devils advocate though - Theranos had 800 employees at its peak, it's hard to think that at least a few of those people working there genuinely thought they were trying to solve the problem.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  Lidar still tries to kill me on a daily basis; It doesn't like sunrise and sunset.
  - lizen_one 4y ago
    Very interesting. What LiDAR are you using? Does it happen if the sun shines directly into the LiDAR from the front?
    - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
      Standard commercial unit, no clue. It happens as you say, with sun shining directly in front, especially when passing under bridges or when another vehicle passes the sun (but not in your lane). The stark difference of direct sunlight and long shadows triggers it the most.
eesmith 4y ago
“Jerry, just remember. It’s not a lie… If you believe it.” When a company asserts they will have self-driving cars in a year, and they aren't doing any on-road tests, is that assertion a deliberate deception? Or a willing self-deception? In any case, people can work be part of a scam without knowing it's a scam. Do you think everyone at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities knew it was a big Ponzi scheme?
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  Uranus makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Uranian time) in about 84 Earth years (30,687 Earth days). So you see, it's true. From a certain point of view.
Spooky23 4y ago
Tesla has been collecting money for a non-existent upcoming capability for how long now? Or did they just redefine the meaning of “full self driving” to mean something other than the car fully driving itself? Then there is Uber. You could read HN archival posts where significant numbers of folks here drank the kool-aid and waved away the obvious holes in the Uber business model with “of course this is just temporary… robot cars will be doing everything in two years”. Listen to a Ben Thompson podcast when he devotes dozens of hours fawning over Uber. Full self driving is tantalizing for unethical business people because it demos so well. High minded talk about the trolley car problem and liddites shut down meaningful criticism. The engineers may be collecting big paychecks working on it, but they are hardly innocent; they are no different than employees of any other unethical corporation.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  What unethical corporation do you work for? They're all unethical.
  - ido 4y ago
    Your comment reminds me of this Dril quote: https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312 https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312 the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"
  - batmanturkey 4y ago
    I sense deflection and an attempt to change the point being made above your response. It’s particularly unethical to promise a badly thought out goal that cannot be meaningfully achieved in the interests of drawing out financial support for a longer period of time. I am reminded of the person who called their intimate partner “tomorrow” because they never came.
- dr-detroit 4y ago
- 4y ago
kasabali 4y ago
I'm sure scientists and engineers at Theranos were genuinely trying to solve the problem, too. That didn't make it a non-scam.
- randomdata 4y ago
  There is nothing inherently scammy about automated blood testing, even if we currently lack the technology.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    Continuing to brand something with deceptive wording does cross over into fraud.
    - randomdata 4y ago
      There is room for fraud within a scope of offering undiscovered technologies, but the undiscovered technologies themselves are not fraud. Theranos isn’t comparable to self-driving cars.
      - paulryanrogers 4y ago
        So imagine I sell a future-looking feature which is incompete and unreliable, even causing an order of magnitude more fatalities per usage (e.g. mile) than the alternative. And continue to sell and offer it under a confusing name for years. What would have to happen for it to cross over from naive aspiration to fraud. I.e. for Tesla FSD to become like Theranos? For me that line was crossed when Tesla offered FSD on public roads, to the general public, and continuing to include 'full' and "self driving" in the name. Every day it continues more non-Tesla owners are put at risk while the government is asleep at the wheel.
        TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
        You mean like selling realestate on the moon?

It's not a scam. A scam is a deliberate deception. Engineers working on this are genuinely trying to solve the problem.

by dqpb 4y ago

It's not a scam. A scam is a deliberate deception. Engineers working on this are genuinely trying to solve the problem.

I agree with your comment, there are lots of folks making real progress in this space and there are secondary industries that benefit from things like lidar which has gotten way better in large part to this work. Playing devils advocate though - Theranos had 800 employees at its peak, it's hard to think that at least a few of those people working there genuinely thought they were trying to solve the problem.

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
Lidar still tries to kill me on a daily basis; It doesn't like sunrise and sunset.
- lizen_one 4y ago
  Very interesting. What LiDAR are you using? Does it happen if the sun shines directly into the LiDAR from the front?
  - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
    Standard commercial unit, no clue. It happens as you say, with sun shining directly in front, especially when passing under bridges or when another vehicle passes the sun (but not in your lane). The stark difference of direct sunlight and long shadows triggers it the most.

eesmith 4y ago

“Jerry, just remember. It’s not a lie… If you believe it.” When a company asserts they will have self-driving cars in a year, and they aren't doing any on-road tests, is that assertion a deliberate deception? Or a willing self-deception? In any case, people can work be part of a scam without knowing it's a scam. Do you think everyone at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities knew it was a big Ponzi scheme?

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
Uranus makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Uranian time) in about 84 Earth years (30,687 Earth days). So you see, it's true. From a certain point of view.

Spooky23 4y ago

Tesla has been collecting money for a non-existent upcoming capability for how long now? Or did they just redefine the meaning of “full self driving” to mean something other than the car fully driving itself? Then there is Uber. You could read HN archival posts where significant numbers of folks here drank the kool-aid and waved away the obvious holes in the Uber business model with “of course this is just temporary… robot cars will be doing everything in two years”. Listen to a Ben Thompson podcast when he devotes dozens of hours fawning over Uber. Full self driving is tantalizing for unethical business people because it demos so well. High minded talk about the trolley car problem and liddites shut down meaningful criticism. The engineers may be collecting big paychecks working on it, but they are hardly innocent; they are no different than employees of any other unethical corporation.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
What unethical corporation do you work for? They're all unethical.
- ido 4y ago
  Your comment reminds me of this Dril quote: https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312 https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312 the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"
- batmanturkey 4y ago
  I sense deflection and an attempt to change the point being made above your response. It’s particularly unethical to promise a badly thought out goal that cannot be meaningfully achieved in the interests of drawing out financial support for a longer period of time. I am reminded of the person who called their intimate partner “tomorrow” because they never came.
dr-detroit 4y ago
4y ago

kasabali 4y ago

I'm sure scientists and engineers at Theranos were genuinely trying to solve the problem, too. That didn't make it a non-scam.

randomdata 4y ago
There is nothing inherently scammy about automated blood testing, even if we currently lack the technology.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  Continuing to brand something with deceptive wording does cross over into fraud.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    There is room for fraud within a scope of offering undiscovered technologies, but the undiscovered technologies themselves are not fraud. Theranos isn’t comparable to self-driving cars.
    - paulryanrogers 4y ago
      So imagine I sell a future-looking feature which is incompete and unreliable, even causing an order of magnitude more fatalities per usage (e.g. mile) than the alternative. And continue to sell and offer it under a confusing name for years. What would have to happen for it to cross over from naive aspiration to fraud. I.e. for Tesla FSD to become like Theranos? For me that line was crossed when Tesla offered FSD on public roads, to the general public, and continuing to include 'full' and "self driving" in the name. Every day it continues more non-Tesla owners are put at risk while the government is asleep at the wheel.
      - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
        You mean like selling realestate on the moon?