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The 'internet of things' is sending us back to the Middle Ages

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Re: The 'internet of things' is sending us back to the Middle Ages

#21

Post by golemotron »

jeffdavis wrote: post #12

The problem is software complexity. You can't really own anything you don't understand, and you can't be free in a world you don't understand. And we don't understand software. Imagine a naive young king who doesn't understand how to do anything for himself. He will easily be controlled by those around him that do understand the world. Of course, nobody before ever understood everything about the world. But different…

> The problem is software complexity. You can't really own anything you don't understand, and you can't be free in a world you don't understand. And we don't understand software.

What this means is that for all practical purposes AI is already here. AI, or rather the fear of AI, is about software making decisions that impact us outside of our knowledge or control.

Prior to software this was done by bureaucracy. We can see software (on the slope to AI) as disempowering in the same way.

Re: The 'internet of things' is sending us back to the Middle Ages

#22

Post by bsder »

jeffdavis wrote: post #12

The problem is software complexity. You can't really own anything you don't understand, and you can't be free in a world you don't understand. And we don't understand software. Imagine a naive young king who doesn't understand how to do anything for himself. He will easily be controlled by those around him that do understand the world. Of course, nobody before ever understood everything about the world. But different…

> And we don't understand software.

People are perfectly capable of understanding very large programs even from reverse engineering.

The issue is that things change so quickly that generating such knowledge is economically useless.

I have this discussion with my CTO all the time:

"I'd like you to go do ".

"No, please give that to ."

"But he's junior. I want someone senior to do it."

"The half-life on the knowledge to do is weeks to months. Senior people will be no better at than a junior person, and our junior people are quite capable precisely because we trust them with things that other places would consider a "senior" task. The first couple of weeks are going to be spent on Google, Slack, IRC, mailing lists, forums, and anything else figuring out all the ways that thing fails and how to debug it. After a week or two, they won't be junior at it, and we'll make them give a talk about it if we deploy it."

Sometimes I still have to step in, and that's fine. But I avoid learning software things with short half-lives as much as possible, nowadays.

Of course, that makes me an out-of-touch, crusty, old fart to my juniors.

But, they are smart enough to acknowledge that my code always seems to be so much more reliable than theirs. And that's fine, too.

Re: The 'internet of things' is sending us back to the Middle Ages

#24

Post by siavosh »

jeffdavis wrote: post #12

The problem is software complexity. You can't really own anything you don't understand, and you can't be free in a world you don't understand. And we don't understand software. Imagine a naive young king who doesn't understand how to do anything for himself. He will easily be controlled by those around him that do understand the world. Of course, nobody before ever understood everything about the world. But different…

A prime example of all this are AI black boxes like neural nets.

Re: The 'internet of things' is sending us back to the Middle Ages

#25

Post by userbinator »

jeffdavis wrote: post #12

The problem is software complexity. You can't really own anything you don't understand, and you can't be free in a world you don't understand. And we don't understand software. Imagine a naive young king who doesn't understand how to do anything for himself. He will easily be controlled by those around him that do understand the world. Of course, nobody before ever understood everything about the world. But different…

Nobody understands how a car works, nobody understands how a phone works, because they are both controlled by hopelessly complex software.

At least for cars and other home appliances, you can still buy older models which don't have software at all and are thus relatively understandable and repairable (and such machines often sell for surprisingly high prices even when well-used, for this and a few other reasons), but then you give up convenience and efficiency and safety and other things that could be considered progress.

Of course, a lot of people will think you're a redneck or similar if you pursue that way of life, but it's certainly one way to stay away from the "complexity explosion".

Re: The 'internet of things' is sending us back to the Middle Ages

#26

Post by Filligree »

gjjrfcbugxbhf wrote: post #14
kogepathic wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Car modding has gone on for around a century(!) Perhaps I'm mistaken, but my impression is that people weren't as litigious in previous decades. > and I can't remember a single instance where someone modified a car, was injured or killed, then blamed the manufacturer, and the latter was found at fault (instead of the modder or driver.) Sure, but for the past century we've had cars which run on flammable liquid and…

I'm not sure which I'd least like to be near a burning tank of gasoline or a burning lithium ion battery.....

Frankly, the battery. Gasoline fumes aren't nearly as toxic, and neither is likely to explode. In either case you have to run away ASAP.

Re: The 'internet of things' is sending us back to the Middle Ages

#27

Post by ocdtrekkie »

jwmullally wrote: post #19

I agree. Copy+pasting an old comment of mine from this old thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12683924 > A general solution to IoT security would be for all IoT devices to only communicate to your personally owned home gateway, which would run open-source drivers for each device to provide the networking/external communication functionality. The IoT device could even be assigned its own isolated network link…

This is how my home works. My automation devices use Insteon, which is local only communication, and then my computer has an adapter for it that I wrote the software for.

Re: The 'internet of things' is sending us back to the Middle Ages

#28

Post by ocdtrekkie »

kogepathic wrote: post #3

On the whole I agree with the author, but they have glossed over some things I feel should be addressed: > The computer manufacturer Lenovo, for instance, used to sell its computers with a program called “Superfish” preinstalled. Most "serious" users reformat the machine and re-install the OS to get rid of the OEM included crapware. Not something the average user does, sure, but you're still allowed to re-install the…

I suspect Tesla will face significant legal issues with the way they lock down their platform in the near future. The wealthy folks who can afford the S and X can afford to only deal with the manufacturer, and are likely to buy a new car when the warranty expires. But with the Model 3, a lot more people are going to take issue with Tesla's rules.

Re: The 'internet of things' is sending us back to the Middle Ages

#30

Post by anmorgan »

jeffdavis wrote: post #12

The problem is software complexity. You can't really own anything you don't understand, and you can't be free in a world you don't understand. And we don't understand software. Imagine a naive young king who doesn't understand how to do anything for himself. He will easily be controlled by those around him that do understand the world. Of course, nobody before ever understood everything about the world. But different…

> Software is so complex that nobody really understands it.

Unless this statement is trying to imply something deeper than what it states, I would disagree.

I work with embedded systems and connected devices. To me it's not a problem of complexity, but a problem of not having a strong standard of practices on both the device side and the facility side.

Have sensitive data on your network? Separate it from the rest of the network, or don't put devices on the network that don't meet your security needs.

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