Artificial intelligence (AI) company Rabbit denied some of the allegations by YouTube investigator Stephen Findeisen, saying that the company has been transparent about rebranding and shifting into AI.
On May 22, Findeisen, better known as “Coffeezilla,” accused Rabbit of facilitating a nonfungible token (NFT) scam and attempting to conceal it.
The investigator pointed toward the company’s rebranding from Cyber Manufacture to Rabbit, which seemingly flew under the radar.
Findeisen also alleged that Rabbit AI’s founder and CEO, Jesse Lyu, promised many things to the Gama NFT project’s supporters but never delivered.
The investigator also brought up the company’s new Rabbit R1 AI product and called it “overhyped,” similar to the NFT project, which he called a “scam.”
In a statement sent to Cointelegraph, a Rabbit spokesperson claimed that Rabbit and the Gama project were separate ideas and ventures under the same company.
Citing a tech media article published in 2023, the spokesperson said they previously stated that Rabbit was rebranded from Cyber Manufacturing.
Furthermore, the spokesperson claimed that many of its employees joined after the rebranding. They said that over 80% of Rabbit’s current employees joined after December 2023, a few months after its rebrand.
The spokesperson also stated that the Gama project had already concluded when it was open-sourced. They said:
“Jesse strongly disputes Coffeezilla’s allegations that he and the Gama team were not forthright about the open-sourcing of the project, which had the support of investors, and his shift in focus to AI hardware.”
The spokesperson further claimed that Lyu has a long history as an entrepreneur and was involved in a range of projects, including Gama.
“It’s a project he has talked about at length in the past, but it ended before he started Rabbit. At the end of the day, many companies do pivot,” they added.
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When it comes to Findeisen comments on the Rabbit R1, the company’s spokesperson said that they are receiving use cases and feedback from users every day.
The spokesperson claimed that 10,000 users who received the product have generated over 600,000 interactions in the last thirty days.
The company also said that in the past month, it released updates that address the feedback and is launching new features.
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