[pyrophane]

They are already taking device pre-orders and selling coins for their own cryptocurrency, but I wouldn't give these guys any money right now. Other than blacking out our collective tech-hype bingo board, they've provided very little real information about how they intend to make any of this work.

From what they promise I'd expect their team to be stacked with AI researchers, but it looks like just a CEO, a COO and a single PhD "advisor." Who's going to actually build all this? Maybe that's why their "careers" page shows that they are looking for everything from embedded systems to ML engineers.

Seems like either a money grab or an overly idealistic founding team happy to promise the world and figure out how to deliver it later.

Edit: nathantross, you posted this and you're the COO, right? Wanna respond?

[pyrophane]

As a thought exercise, here's how a hypothetical scam product (we'll call it Hysteria) could work.

1. Market Hysteria as a revolutionary product in whatever space is currently attracting the most hype. Get everyone excited by promising to bring a popular science fiction book/film to life.

2. Spend half an afternoon cloning bitcoin to create new cryptocurrency linked to your product and start selling the coins. Offer limited time "early mover" price to capitalize on FOMO.

3. Work your press contacts to create more buzz around Hysteria.

4. Once you collected a few million dollars selling coins, go out of business. You haven't really defrauded anyone (you delivered the promised coins, and it isn't your fault they didn't turn out to be worth anything), and in an industry where the mantra is "fail fast" your activity isn't likely to attract that much attention.

[WhitneyLand]

How about doing all of this except build something real with a solid business plan? For some of us the hype is the hardest part.

[badminton1]

They are going to take pre-orders and deliver a Nintendogs clone. A Nintendog is an AI friend that fits their vague description.

[RangerScience]

What's this about their own cryptocurrency?

Edit: Found it: https://getasteria.com/currency

[RangerScience]

It's a bitcoin fork. It looks like they're using it as a form of bond or stock; it's (partly/mostly) pre-mined, they're selling it at a particular rate, and they'll buy it back later when they start making a profit. Interesting!

Anyone know someone else who's trying something similar?

[TheSpiceIsLife]

I've got an email for a Nigerian prince you might be interested in.

[RangerScience]

I mean yes, but... at minimum it's just another bitcoin fork, like, say, Dogecoin.

Still, given what I expect the time investment was? A worthwhile experiment. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but you probably learn something.