Humans and dogs share 95% of DNA, so I actually think there’s a legitimate argument that their statistical model can accurately identify dogs while throwing out junk results for humans because the mismatch basically turns into random noise.
Should they have to implement that check? If you use a service improperly it’s not surprising that you’d get incorrect results. Now maybe they had an inconclusivity parameter that they hid because they didn’t want to have to give refunds to those customers, in which case that would be a problem.
“Have to” depends on factors like whether there are any laws being violated - e.g. for fraud, which would normally be difficult to prove but this kind of story might open up to an enormous lawsuit, regarding who has the responsibility of providing the services in return for the money, so despite offering a refund if the company had not done that in advance, but instead waited for the lawsuit, then it could get into deeper territory like what the specific language of the contract says, and what damages may be able to be demonstrated, etc.
And the laws there differ for a for-profit corporation iirc compared to a nonprofit organization that can still pay a hefty salary to its workers and management (I think?).
And then there’s just public perception: people hearing about these scenarios could put the entire company, if not the industry itself, in severe financial jeopardy.
Especially if that check could have been implemented in a month or two, the cost of failing to do so may be extremely high in comparison to simply just doing it - as in, better safe than sorry.
But “have to”, I don’t know exactly. It just seems naively like something that would have been worthwhile? Maybe.
By have to I just meant to meet my expectations as a consumer. I couldn’t care less if a service can’t do something it wasn’t designed or expected to do. If it identifies dogs correctly and acts randomly on humans, I don’t care. If this is exposing a deeper flaw in its primary function of identifying dogs, such as asserting non conclusive results as conclusive, then I do care.
Humans and dogs share 95% of DNA, so I actually think there’s a legitimate argument that their statistical model can accurately identify dogs while throwing out junk results for humans because the mismatch basically turns into random noise.
It could have, if they had bothered to actually implement that check.
The company exists for reasons of short term profits though, so… why should/would they?
Should they have to implement that check? If you use a service improperly it’s not surprising that you’d get incorrect results. Now maybe they had an inconclusivity parameter that they hid because they didn’t want to have to give refunds to those customers, in which case that would be a problem.
“Have to” depends on factors like whether there are any laws being violated - e.g. for fraud, which would normally be difficult to prove but this kind of story might open up to an enormous lawsuit, regarding who has the responsibility of providing the services in return for the money, so despite offering a refund if the company had not done that in advance, but instead waited for the lawsuit, then it could get into deeper territory like what the specific language of the contract says, and what damages may be able to be demonstrated, etc.
And the laws there differ for a for-profit corporation iirc compared to a nonprofit organization that can still pay a hefty salary to its workers and management (I think?).
And then there’s just public perception: people hearing about these scenarios could put the entire company, if not the industry itself, in severe financial jeopardy.
Especially if that check could have been implemented in a month or two, the cost of failing to do so may be extremely high in comparison to simply just doing it - as in, better safe than sorry.
But “have to”, I don’t know exactly. It just seems naively like something that would have been worthwhile? Maybe.
By have to I just meant to meet my expectations as a consumer. I couldn’t care less if a service can’t do something it wasn’t designed or expected to do. If it identifies dogs correctly and acts randomly on humans, I don’t care. If this is exposing a deeper flaw in its primary function of identifying dogs, such as asserting non conclusive results as conclusive, then I do care.