Comment by rustcleaner

Comment by rustcleaner a day ago

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Why can't we just have a good hammer? Hammers come made of soft rubber now and they can't hammer a fly let alone a nail! The best gun fires everytime its trigger is pulled, regardless of who's holding it or what it's pointed at. The best kitchen knife cuts everything significantly softer than it, regardless of who holds it or what it's cutting. Do you know what one "easily fixed" thing definitely steals Best Tool from gen-AI, no matter how much it improves regardless of it? Safety.

An unpassable "I'm sorry Dave," should never ever be the answer your device gives you. It's getting about time to pass "customer sovereignty" laws which fight this by making companies give full refunds (plus 7%/annum force of interest) on 10 year product horizons when a company explicitly designs in "sovereignty-denial" features and it's found, and also pass exorbitant sales taxes for the same for future sales. There is no good reason I can't run Linux on my TV, microwave, car, heart monitor, and cpap machine. There is no good reason why I can't have a model which will give me the procedure for manufacturing Breaking Bad's dextromethamphetamine, or blindly translate languages without admonishing me about foul language/ideas in whichever text and that it will not comply. The fact this is a thing and we're fuzzy-handcuffing FULLY GROWN ADULTS should cause another Jan 6 event into Microsoft, Google, and others' headquarters! This fake shell game about safety has to end, it's transparent anticompetitive practices dressed in a skimpy liability argument g-string!

(it is not up to objects to enforce US Code on their owners, and such is evil and anti-individualist)

mschuster91 a day ago

> There is no good reason I can't run Linux on my TV, microwave, car, heart monitor, and cpap machine.

Agreed on the TV - but everything else? Oh hell no. It's bad enough that we seem to have decided it's fine that multi-billion dollar corporations can just use public roads as testbeds for their "self driving" technology, but at least these corporations and their insurances can be held liable in case of an accident. Random Joe Coder however who thought it'd be a good idea to try and work on their own self driving AI and cause a crash? In doubt his insurance won't cover a thing. And medical devices are even worse.

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  • jboy55 a day ago

    >Agreed on the TV - but everything else? Oh hell no..

    Then you go to list all the problems with just the car. And your problem is putting your own AI on a car to self-drive.(Linux isn't AI btw). What about putting your own linux on the multi-media interface of the car? What about a CPAP machine? heart monitor? Microwave? I think you mistook the parent's post entirely.

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    • mschuster91 a day ago

      > Then you go to list all the problems with just the car. And your problem is putting your own AI on a car to self-drive.(Linux isn't AI btw).

      It's not just about AI driving. I don't want anyone's shoddy and not signed-off crap on the roads - and Europe/Germany does a reasonably well job at that: it is possible to build your own car or (heavily) modify an existing one, but as soon as whatever you do touches anything safety-critical, an expert must sign-off on it that it is road-worthy.

      > What about putting your own linux on the multi-media interface of the car?

      The problem is, with modern cars it's not "just" a multimedia interface like a car radio - these things are also the interface for critical elements like windshield wipers. I don't care if your homemade Netflix screen craps out while you're driving, but I do not want to be the one your car crashes into because your homemade HMI refused to activate the wipers.

      > What about a CPAP machine? heart monitor?

      Absolutely no homebrew/aftermarket stuff, if you allow that you will get quacks and frauds that are perfectly fine exploiting gullible idiots. The medical DIY community is also something that I don't particularly like very much - on one side, established manufacturers love to rip off people (particularly in hearing aids), but on the other side, with stuff like glucose pumps actual human lives are at stake. Make one tiny mistake and you get a Therac.

      > Microwave?

      I don't get why anyone would want Linux on their microwave in the first place, but again, from my perspective only certified and unmodified appliances should be operated. Microwaves are dangerous if modified.

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      • jboy55 a day ago

        >The problem is, with modern cars it's not "just" a multimedia interface like a car radio - these things are also the interface for critical elements like windshield wipers. I don't care if your homemade Netflix screen craps out while you're driving, but I do not want to be the one your car crashes into because your homemade HMI refused to activate the wipers.

        Lets invent circumstances where it would be a problem to run your own car, but lets not invent circumstances where we can allow home brew MMI interfaces. Such as 99% of cars where the MMI interface has nothing to do with wipers. Furthermore, you drive on the road every day with people who have shitty wipers, that barely work, or who don't run their wipers 'fast enough' to effectively clear their windsheild. Is there a enforced speed?

        And my CPAP machine, my blood pressure monitor, my scale, my O2 monitor (I stocked up during covid), all have some sort of external web interface that call home to proprietary places, which I trust I am in control of. I'd love to flash my own software onto those, put them all in one place, under my control. Where I can have my own logging without fearing my records are accessible via some fly-by-night 3rd party company that may be selling or leaking data.

        I bet you think that Microwaves, stoves etc should never have web interfaces? Well, if you are disabled, say you have low vision and/or blind, microwaves, modern toasters, and other home appliances are extremely difficult or impossible to operate. If you are skeptical, I would love for you to have been next to me when I was demoing the "Alexa powered Microwave" to people who are blind.

        There are a lot of a11y university programs hacking these and providing a central UX for home appliances for people with cognitive and vision disabilities.

        But please, lets just wait until we're allowed to use them.

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  • rustcleaner a day ago

    While you are fine living under the tyranny of experts, I remember that experts are human and humans (especially groups of humans) should almost never be trusted with sovereign power over others. When making a good hammer is akin to being accessory to murder (same argument [fake] "liberals" use to attack gunmakers), then liberty is no longer priority.

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    • mschuster91 a day ago

      > While you are fine living under the tyranny of experts, I remember that experts are human and humans (especially groups of humans) should almost never be trusted with sovereign power over others.

      I'm European, German to be specific. I agree that we do suffer from a bit of overregulation, but I sincerely prefer that to poultry that has to be chlorine-washed to be safe to eat.

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