This was my thought. I can understand not wanting to go to the hassle of trying to explain that you're testing an experimental prototype robot to a confused Airbnb owner.
What I find inexcusable is not owning up to the damage and paying to fix it when your prototype goes on a rampage of destruction.
Moving fast and breaking things is fine, as long as you fix the stuff you break...
> We are backed by Greenoaks, NFDG, Spark, Eclipse, Kleiner Perkins, Y Combinator, and many others who
are too broke to pay for scratched furniture?
> Moving fast and breaking things is fine, as long as you fix the stuff you break...
What? No its not. Breaking things can cause harm that is not always "fixable", particularly if its not your thing to break.
You don't need to rent someone else's house to test your robot. These people all live in houses.