Why would the company want all this controversy over a tech demo?

Cameras are for insurance

They do have the rights because this falls under fair use, It doesn’t matter if a picture is copyrighted as long as the outcome is transformative.

John Von Neumann died in 1956 and I believe he came up with the original “von neumann probe” that he called the “universal constructor”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_constructor

Grown in Florida, Peeled in Ecuador, packaged in China, sold in Utah.

Its 100% a thing

The data harvesting fronts that have been released to consumers are not the problem. Its AI that generates better jet parts, or ai that can better detect submarines, or AI that can efficiently parse through the massive amounts of data they collect on everyone.