It’s wild just how much they’re trying to shove AI down our throats.
My company received an email from Microsoft this week.
“From our data you are not selling Ai features as much as your competitors and we suggest that you start changing this or you will be left behind.”
It was a completely bullshit email. But the stupids at my company are now worried that Microsoft is tracking the features we’re selling with our computers. Like if that wasn’t the most glaring red flag “we have spent way too much money on this and we need you to prove we aren’t dumbasses” I don’t know what is.
I still will not sell Ai outside of its basic uses. And I’m backed up by the old heads in my department. Ai is not for everything.
One day, literally every Gsuite product immediately and incessantly started nagging us to use Gemini. Fortunately our tech staff quickly switched it all off. We have slowly been re-enabling features that are useful like meeting transcriptions. I just wish these corporations could have more restraint. In previous waves of improvement in tech, usage dictated investment in new products. These days, they seem to feel the need to coerce us to use their products as they insist we should. I think users are getting fatigued by this dynamic. I used to be the first to install every update and try new apps and products. These days, I’m excited when I can stop using a product, and I don’t think it’s just due to age. It means I can stop having to be vigilant about some company I know is searching for ways to exploit me.
Yeah the MBA guys who pushed enshitification were empowered because their strategies made more money so they must know what they are doing right? Now things don’t happen because they are better they happen because these guys think there is money. And the guys who used to pick the best ideas are out being rich somewhere
I think this rollout could have been handled better. I am generally pro AI but I do think there are tasks it does not handle well (yet?) and places it is unnecessary or just shouldn’t be used. On the other hand though I do think that it is partly age and being in tech a while you tend to get fatigued. Giddily wanting to try all the latest stuff only really works when the technology is new and immature or that you are new to the technology. People have been around digital technology for a while now so it’s no longer exciting.
In general its just wasteful use of power for answers that are easily found in other ways.
Answering questions is not the only thing it’s used for. Lol.
The stats show people are using it for things like multiple my meal by 18% tip, or give me web link to x product. Instead of using a calculator app, or re gular search. Meanwhile the AI companies are having to build power station. People are stupid, and we will ruin out world because of idiots
Every time I search for a simple answer Google suggests I use Gemini instead, or they show me a “switch to AI mode” pop up that covers the lower third of my screen. I’ve just started receiving emails about using it on my old Gmail account apropos of nothing. These companies are begging people to waste that energy.
And then they’re gonna say “see? Look how many people are using this! I deserve a bonus.” When it’s a setting that’s just on by default.
Yep, you can turn off some of it with the flags settings https://pureinfotech.com/disable-ai-mode-address-bar-new-tab-chrome/
You are the cream of the crop, somehow you not only knew this, you decided that this needs to be shared, even though anyone with electricity has been told this hundreds of times.Thank yooooooooouuuuuuu
“This technology is so useful we’re going to force it on you every way we can think of”
Last year I quit a job that added AI use to performance reviews.
It was basically “if we’re not all in on AI our competitors will be, we all need to learn it”.
Nobody paid for their product for AI before, they paid for a product that was simple and reliable so that their business didn’t have to worry about issues and could dicks on their core competencies.
I watched some sheisters build some impressive money furnaces, they got the praise while I got sidelined for pointing out the costs. I literally showed the forecasted costs of tens of thousands a week on basically a vanity feature with no payout, and the execs all said yeah that was fine, it’s AI. Then two months later they were asking me why our costs went up so much and why they didn’t know that would happen, and I just pointed to my date stamped presentation of the numbers and meeting notes they approved (and my numbers were 99% accurate to the true costs).
When execs ignore my advice and warnings I leave.
Sorry to hear that. It’s wild. Dell is doing a 30% price hike because of prices. Announced today. I expect us to follow.
That’s not my worst one. I did an analysis for one company which took 2 months since their data was such a mess. They were spending at least $10m/year (20 high comp devs) developing a product that was pulling in 8k/year. They did not have a path to growing revenue 1000x on that one, when I told the ceo and he doubled down that it was a bet they wanted to make. They really just wanted the nice slide deck for the board.
I checked in a year later and they were still working on it. Two years later they mothballed it. They could have saved millions by listening to me.
For your protection!
I need someone to explain to me, what situation could possibly arise that would require me to use Copilot on my fucking TV?
The same reason why windows has that stupid desktop search - so that some twat with an MBA can brag about user engagement and justify his existence. Also, to hoover up user data for slop machine training.
At least you can turn that search thing off!
Don’t think about what copilot can do for you that’s some socialism talk!, think about how it could squeeze profits and data from your instead ~Microsoft lunatics
This is like how I save money on internet by having cable I don’t watch.
The execs just want that cable subscriber number to go up so they effectively pay me to have it.
They had the same thing with landlines for a while.
I believe we’re talking about the “number go up” scenario
“Go away, I’m batin’!”
Play the movie where Darth Vader dies.
Of course there are features enabled by ai. But to force it down our throats, that’s the problem.
I’ll throw my money at any TV manfucturer that just sells me a dumb OLED TV with great picture quality. Heck, even drop the speakers, I won’t be using them anyway. Just a dumb panel with plenty of input/outputs.
Sceptre has some dumb models.
The LG TVs are basically that if you just ignore the LG ui. You can plug in whatever input you want and have it automatically go there on power on
I never see the LG UI. Only my nvidia shield
You’ll never get a high quality panel like you want because there’s only so many that produce the panels. And without a value add nobody makes any money.
FYI, LG and Samsung were both confirmed to take and upload periodic screenshots, whether you’re using native apps or an external input.
Shitty article with guide to disable ACR: https://appleinsider.com/inside/mac/tips/how-to-stop-your-lg-or-samsung-smart-tv-from-tracking-you (you might want to block traffic altogether knowing what they are ok with doing)
Primary source for finding: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203
Thanks for the link. Looks like I had already turned it off.
Is not online
Same here. Love my LG tv, but it only talks to my shield. And my other tv talks linux. But nvidia is also walking down an ad ridden possibly ai path.
If it is connected to the internet, that’s not true. https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203
The last time I said basically this same thing, someone recommended something…I think it was an industrial TV or something? I can’t remember!
Industrial TVs or computer monitors, yeah, but that’s only a matter of time and the former are expensive.
Edit: also projectors.I think there are “smart” monitors now with these things being built in.
It’s most Samsung who just put the TV OS on a monitor.
They are on a technical level always identical so you just end up with two skus for the same product. One witb and one with out the OS.
So it’s not that bad… Yet…
Oh, the same company that screenshots your content even if you use it as a dumb display? Who could’ve predicted this!
I read somewhere Samsung does it too. Not surprised at all if they all do it, along wiht the streaming sticks.
I mean considering that broadcasters have been viewing our watching habits ever since the inception of TV this is really no different.
Those viewing stats were the result of polling and maybe some heuristics, but it’s not possible to measure how many receiving stations are tuned to a TV or radio frequency
You’ve obviously never heard of the Nelson rating system. They very much insult boxes on top of people’s TVs that were known as Nelson family’s to actually watch their viewing habits and track it. And then they were able to estimate based on the number of TVs sold in that area what was being viewed.
Its a bit different from opting into being a nelson family vs obfuscating opting you in automatically and recording all of your TV watching
this is really no different.
For some, yeah. But with the way things are running in politics, we’re 6 inches away from Sony demanding to see our viewing logs to make sure we’re not pirating.
Today’s data collection is tomorrow’s felony conviction.
I mean, sony has already installed rootkits under the pretense of DRM. Back in 2005
Even if the cats are out of the bag, i’d like to remove as many privacy leaks as possible.
The controversy centers on a Reddit post in the r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit, where a user lamented the unexpected addition of Copilot following an automatic update. The post, which garnered thousands of upvotes and comments, describes the AI tool appearing as a non-deletable app on the TV’s interface.
“Widespread backlash” 🙄
AI generated summary for sure
I thought “Widespread backlash” was the position Microsoft wants all its customers in ✋️🍑🤚
Honestly, though this is the definition of “widespread backlash” when it comes to red pilled garbage. So I’ll take it.
Needs to be illegal.
Yeah, changing hardware operating software after purchase should be restricted.
At minimum, should be forced to allow trash software to be removed.
This shit is why more people now have dabbled in DNS blocking and vlans. Its “your” equipment but you need to literally treat it as hostile.
Anything you didn’t program yourself should be assumed hostile.
Lots of open source gets a pad because grumpier people than me review it and they seem to have good taste, but I still don’t blindly trust it.
So glad I blocked my LG C1 from the internet ages ago. Haven’t received updates in forever, don’t care. It’s a TV, it shows pictures. I even still have it LAN enabled so it can be controlled via Home Assistant automations, it just can never leave the home network, and that’s how I like it.
I can’t even remember how long ago I set it up to do this, I think it was when I heard rumor they’d be including ads in the UI, maybe 2023 or so.
That’s interesting - I have a C1 (2021). Where or how do you block these updates and have it connected to your local network?
It’s blocked at my router. I’ve had two routers the past few years, an ASUS AX5700 (RT-AX86u) and a NETGEAR AXE7800 (RAXE300). Both allow for blocking a device from internet without blocking LAN access. So you give it an IP on your network, and then just block it from internet. I use the Netgear currently and have the ASUS as a backup device.
I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve read that some TVs will scan and seek to connect to open networks if it’s not connected at all, so I figure that way it’s totally blocked, and I still have access to its APIs for Home Assistant and Homekit use.
You’d need to set up a firewall rule on your router to block that device from accessing the internet. If you’ve got a fancy enough router you could set up a VLAN and second SSID for all your IoT things and only whitelist connections and devices you want to allow. That can get a little tricky to set up though
So it talks to your media box exclusively and your media box summons the streaming services?
I’ve got a Home Assistant server hooked into homekit with voice (via an Apple HomePod). I can say something like “turn on home theater” and it will turn on the receiver, TV, and Apple TV, and will set the receiver to the Apple TV’s input.
Then, other automations. Like, I’ve got a Lytmi Fantasy 3 Pro light strip behind my TV, and when I launch video (via streaming, plex, whatever) on the Apple TV, it will automatically turn off the living room lights except for the color strip. Then if I stop or pause the video, it will turn them back on. Stuff like that.
Only drawback is the TV doesn’t do wake on LAN unless you use the ethernet connection. If you want it wireless, you gotta use CEC instead, but that’s not too big a deal.
This comes up a lot, and I don’t necessarily get it. I have all smart TVs, and I just never, ever, EVER let them connect to wifi even ONCE for any reason. It’s not like it NEEDS it for anything.
It’s not like it NEEDS it for anything.
I see this take online a lot, but in person, everywhere I go people play netflix and whatever directly on their TV. I think there might just be a huge divide in perspective between those with and without game consoles of some sort always connected to their TV.
Totally, although the thing is I bet one day tvs will come with a built in sim card, or worst yet will disable themselves until there’s an active internet connection or some other scummy method
You can not set up a Roku tv without being connected to the internet.
That’s the point when I will get a dumb corporate TV with a streaming dongle or media server connected via HDMI or DP…
Those don’t really exist anymore though.
There are displays and I will get them.
If I can’t afford it, I will not get any TV and use my computer or phone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Fuck that whole industry. If they force me, I will do it another way.
I think they kind of do the active Internet part now. I don’t watch television and haven’t touched a TV for a long time, but recently I had to help a neighbour set his new smart TV up. It was one of the big brands, I don’t remember if it was LG, Samsung or something else. The TV couldn’t go through initial set up without me installing some app on his phone. If there was an option to skip I couldn’t see where it was, I only assume that if it was possible it was intentionally made un-intuitive or hard to discover. And of course, if you want the TV to connect to the app you must connect it to Internet. Again, it may have been a failure on my part, but I wouldn’t be supprised if they intentionally forced the user to do it this way.
Samsung had something similar on their cheaper phones (the A series) where during the initial set up it asks you to login or create a Samsung account and you have to jump through a couple of hoops to skip it, as well as some other part where I don’t remember what the phone asked you to do, but the “Yes” option was blue, while the button to skip was intentionally colored the same or very similar shade of gray as an inactive button. So if the TV was Samsung I don’t doubt for a second that they will do some shady practice like that.
Agreed. And that’ll be the time I’m up in arms.
My tv wants to connect to the internet. I tell it to eat shit.
I would assume that there are updates who could be useful or something? But as long as everything works, my tv has no connection to the outside world. Talk to the linux box if you want to know something.
I used to think this… but it’s just not true.
Device software updates only make your device worse now.
If it ABSOLUTELY MUST get online, you DO need to let it update for security purposes, but in most cases now when you buy it from the store, it’s got everything that needs and you just need to block it from getting online all-together.
My LG CX from 2021 has not been online even once since I bought it.
This right here is the answer. There are so many devices you can plug into those things that you don’t really need the crap that they installed natively.
Not to mention they often cheap out on both the software and hardware, so you end up having to slowly navigate through poorly designed UIs that it struggles to display.
Well LG did me a favor. Don’t buy LG tvs, Samsung appliances or HP printers.
Well, at least LG has a range of TVs turned monitors, i.e. without all that “smart” shit. So they have a usable alternative, something other vendors don’t.
Don’t buy LG anything. Everything I’ve bought from them has suckes
I’ve had good luck with their mid-high end kitchen appliances and washer/dryer.
Not impressed with the TV and the AI update made the UI very slow and unresponsive. Next one will not be LG.
Unfortunately, it was just that: good luck. All appliances from Samsung and LG are notorious in the market space for premature failure. If we had a functioning consumer protection agency, they wouldn’t be able to even sell something of such poor reliability.
I have learned to never update any tv or media player, it usually becomes worse. :)
It may be possible to factory reset to the version you got from the beginning. Just have to figure out how.
I have a freezer from them, it has worked well. Took a chance on the brand. But now it seems the display has broke after 3 years only… Hmm.
Your freezer has a display?
Yeah its a touch display that allows the user to set temperature and other settings, and its showing the current temperature inside. But unfortunately i think it has broke. The freezer still runs but I cant change any settings now. One day I will try to unpower it but im afraid to do it. :) Who knows if it will start…
Their washing machines are good
Hard disagree. Please, everyone, research impartial product reviews before you buy any appliance. Your appliance lifespans should be measurable in decades.
Try a Speed Queen and then get back to me.
We have had great luck with our LG microwave. It’s well over ten years old and the one issue we’ve had was caused by user error. Our two year old LG tv is meh. The backlighting is uneven; our much older Samsung looks much better.
I’ve only ever bought LG phones, they made a couple of duds but largely they were great, they died rather than going to shit.
I need a new phone eventually though. :(
Who the fucks connect tv to the internet
Straight to the work bench, remove the back, physically remove the wifi adapter, replace back of TV. Yay, i am ready for xbox.
If I had done that, I would have never gotten the firmware update to enable VRR support on my HDMI 2.1 ports…
There’s probably a procedure to load firmware from USB. Maybe.
Probably not unless you have the signing keys.
Buy products based on the features they have out of the box, not promises about future updates
I just set up a rule on my firewall to disallow outgoing web traffic from my TV so I can still control it over the wifi. Then if I want to sell it I haven’t broken any functionality.
My next tv (don’t have one) is just gonna be attached to a laptop by hdmi. That’s it.
Meet ACR
Holy shit, I had no idea that exists. My next TV will be a monitor with no internet access.
I’m in the process of making all our media sources and tech independent, starting with my dad’s laptop. I’ve already set up easy remote access so I can always help him with anything. I am NEVER using mainstream shit from now on.
Thrift stores usually have some older dumb TVs if youre okay with 1080p, and Sceptre still makes dumb consumer-grade TVs if you are willing to shop on Amazon or at Walmart
What i don’t get is there is clearly a market here. Why doesn’t some lesser Known TV manufacturer make a dumb TV and steal all those customers from the big ones.
The common “why doesn’t someone just make a ‘dumb’ TV for people who don’t want this crap?” question has an easy answer. Dumb TVs do exist, they’re called “commercial monitors” or “commercial displays” and just show the audiovisual signal given to them by whatever else you hook up, in the manner of old TVs before additional apps or spyware were a thing. As implied by the name, stores and other businesses use them to show what they want without the added guff of the apps and ads they wouldn’t be able to fully control.
Important detail: commercial displays tend to be fuckoff expensive compared to smart TVs of comparable size, quality, and feature set.
“Hey,” you may be thinking, “how do they get away with charging so big a premium for an appliance with fewer features?” And you wouldn’t be out of line to think that. However, what’s going on is more insidious.
The higher price of a “dumb” TV is more correctly thought of as the real price of the appliance. The reason you pay so much less for a comparable “smart” TV is because the companies behind all the apps and spyware, the preinstalled shovelware apps which get you interested to subscribe to their services (Netflix, Hulu, Prime, etc.) and/or send you advertisements, as well as the spyware companies who profit from all the data about you that gets phoned home as you use the thing, pay the hardware manufacturers to put their shit software onto the device at the factory. That money made by the manufacturer from the shit companies goes, at least partially, toward lowering the price of the TV to entice you to pick it up at the store instead of a competitor’s TV.
Look at that big chunk of money you save buying a smart TV over a comparable dumb display, and consider that the shit companies are paying the manufacturer that amount or more for the opportunity to monetize you and your household.
Then, if you have the wherewithal to pay what is now easily considered a ridiculous amount more for an appliance that isn’t part of a system meant to take permanent advantage of you, you can just buy the commercial display instead. Alternatively, you can find clever technological ways to buy the cheaper “smart” one but counteract the ways in which it monetizes you, whether technical ways like jailbreaking or installing alternative OSes (some very early-stage efforts to get this sort of thing going are out there, but still very scattershot compared to the scene for doing so to smartphones) or simpler methods like just never letting the thing onto the Internet no matter how much it begs or enshittifies your user experience (a strategy which will stop working once it becomes cheap enough for the shit companies to just include their own connectivity hardware in the device which uses its own wireless and doesn’t need your network.)
It’s a continuing battle.
That was an excellent explanation. Thanks.
Thanks for your kind words! I’m happy to help.
Build your home as a Faraday cage. They can’t bypass physics.
P.S. Holy crap. The guy on the radio is on lemmy?
Hi! I’m just one guy on the radio, there may be others.
A common refrain I’ve heard about those commercial monitors is that they can’t really do gaming due to input latency, since they’re not built for input, they’re built for commercial display and what commercial display customer cares about input latency. But I haven’t verified that.
Like I just said, Sceptre does. :P
Because they can’t see past the profit generating potential of selling your data.
Even monitors are having smart TV antifeatures added. Soon you won’t be able to find a “dumb monitor” — and this is why.
I know it’s not a fix all
But a Pi-hole prevents a lot of this collected data from ever leaving your network to begin with.
If for some reason someone turns on the wifi on my LG tv (I have teenagers and their friends), I have the device itself blacklisted from the network.
But that’s not a reasonable level of granularity for a typical user. We need privacy protection laws to end this sort of behavior from manufacturers.
Could not possibly agree more.
These companies need to be held accountable.
There are ways to keep yourself somewhat safe for now.
Good luck getting either party to do so with the amount of corporate money thrown their way. :/ You might be able to shout at the Dems to do something but it’ll be a half measure of allowing an opt out system.
Yeah, my smart TVs are the noisiest devices on my network, by far. In a day of heavy usage where I’m doomscrolling and constantly scrolling past ads, my phone may log ~2500 blocked requests. My Roku and Samsung TVs both average around 7000 blocked requests per day, even when we haven’t used them at all. That’s a request to their data-harvesting and ad servers getting blocked every ~12 seconds, even when they’ve been turned “off” all day.
Yup. Make sure it’s not a “smart” TV with a WiFi connection. LG was one of three TV companies (Visio and Samsung were the others) that got caught spying on their TVs HDMI connection and sending usage data on connected devices back to their manufacturers through the WiFi connection.
A wifi connection to where? Were people using unprotected networks?
Vision TVs have built-in WiFi to promote their own, garbage tier streaming service. So you need to connect it to your home WiFi network to use it. But they can also monitor the TVs HDMI port.
So if you have a Roku or a DVD player connected to it, the TV can monitor what’s coming into the HDMI port and then use your WiFi connection to send that info home.
I noticed the Visio is very aggressive about you enabling the WiFi connection even if you just want to use it as a monitor. (i.e. if you disable the TVs WiFi, it will nag you to turn it back on every time you turn the TV on and not let you use the TV until you do it). I’m guessing this is deliberate because Visio values collecting the HDMI data more than their streaming service.
Do not connect it to your network. It cannot do spying if ot cannot connect.
Oh geez I just went and disconnected my TV from WiFi, I dunno why I had it connected in the first place, I use a separate box thingy for all the services. I’m getting so sick of constantly being perceived and surveilled by stuff all around me.
Ive been eyeing up signage displays and 50"+ gaming monitors.
I don’t want the smart in my display, I want the smart attached to my display.
Get a monitor, you don’t need a wall sized tv. I got a pair of Displayport monitors for free, and they perform admirably.
I think the one I have is 50 inch and I think it could be a bit smaller, yeah. A monitor might work better . I just use it for my switch and some tv shows/ambiance.
FYI, it won’t let you delete Alexa either. I hate that fucking thing.
LG’s recent software update has forcibly installed Microsoft Copilot, an AI assistant, on smart TVs without removal options, sparking widespread user backlash over privacy, bloatware, and loss of control. This highlights growing tensions in smart devices, where monetization often overrides user preferences.
Sure is ironic that the article summary is itself AI-generated.
Widespread user backlash? Those of us who value privacy probably stopped watching streamed services anyway. The user base that cares is probably 1%. Nobody I know cares about privacy enough to implement countermeasures.
Irony is LG has their own open weights AI: Exaone 32B.
https://huggingface.co/LGAI-EXAONE
It’s… not terrible. Especially for a multilingual, locally runnable one. But they gave it a license from the depths of hell, that even forbids reverse engineering and basically claims all its outputs, so no one uses it.
https://huggingface.co/LGAI-EXAONE/EXAONE-4.0.1-32B/blob/main/LICENSE
Anyway, I find it darkly hilarious that they choose to snub their own research, and their Tenstorrent partnership, and shove copilot in instead. How much you wanna bet they namedrop OpenAI in their earnings report?
This is corporate enshittification at its purest.
I’d assume microsoft is writing them a fat check to do so
Ding ding
Nothing has to do with quality anymore, it’s all about money for the few rich people
Yeh and their own ‘R and D’ may have been leverage in the negotiation.
