Sam Silverman

I’m guessing few people who joined the backlash chorus against WIRED’s IX Neo piece actually read the full article, or watched the company’s video that sparked some of its inquiries. First, some acknowledgements: 1) This technology is incredible (especially when autonomous versus remotely human-controlled). 2) It’s always stressful to put yourself, your company and your product out there for judgement. An outsider is never going to understand all the context. 3) Media often impose a narrative - sometimes it’s in service of what’s most interesting/relevant to their audience, and sometimes it’s less noble. It’s appropriate to call stuff out that feels unfair, and social media has definitely shifted that power dynamic. That's a good thing! In this case, I personally thought the article was pretty balanced, and raised appropriate questions about privacy (re: the option to have a human take over remotely) coupled with the sexual nature of parts of the product video. For the former, this strikes me as a highly relevant frontier topic and the company had good responses! You should actually want media to ask these tough questions so you have a chance to address - always assume your audience/customer is smart. For the latter, you’ll have to judge for yourself...maybe I have a dirty mind, but looking at the YouTube comments, I am not alone 😇 Regardless, the Neo team did a good job capitalizing on the piece, and likely got far more attention turning this into an anti-media moment than they would have otherwise, especially since the article is behind a paywall anyway. TBD whether that helps or hurts them in the long run.