It’s wild just how much they’re trying to shove AI down our throats.
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.
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 got the notification and I read the fine print. I will have to turn off any future updates from here on out.
Pi hole and block LG’s servers. You can’t just opt out. It will wait for a power outage to opt you back in or “critical security patch” and they’ll force it anyway.
I have pihole network wide and one of the lists I added is https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/SmartTV.txt .
I guess I will have to review those lists.
I added a few domains based on what the TV was pinging. I can look them up when I get home.
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.
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.
Needs to be illegal.
Since it can’t be LG anymore - what’s a good TV screen for gaming?
Samsung S95F OLED
https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/best/by-usage/video-gaming
Its looking like our future will be buying dumb industrial display panels and running a RaspberryPi as your streaming service device
The panels all come from two producers (really just one for the very good ones). So, pick whoever you can get the best deal on for your needed featureset and never connect it to the internet.
LG, Samsung are still fine, you just don’t connect them to the internet and use an android tv instead
Wasn’t LG one of the last good ones left?
Maybe I should have bought a projector instead.
Odroid with LineageOS
Projectors have the exact same problems. Their OSs are awful with ads, too.
A projector with an OS? I just plug mine in via HDMI and it’s no different than a computer monitor.
There are many of us that skip the local OS and go straight to our own source, but there are also many that use the local OS for apps or whatever. Those are the people I’m talking about. They’re the ones getting fucked.
Oh dang, thanks for explaining that!
If I want to avoid connecting my LG smart TV with my network, but I would like to still use a remote with an external device running Jellyfin plugged in via HDMI, what privacy respecting options do I have here? AFAIK, TV sticks run Android and can also collect your data, so my natural guess would be to plug in a device running Linux, but how about remote control?
Block your TV MAC address from accessing the internet at the router level. Local LAN phone apps will still control TV . but for streaming stuff you will want a raspberrypi loaded with Kodi or jellifin
a firewall with a very strict egress policy would probably be all you need
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.
one of the many prices you pay letting a “Smart” TV connect to the internet.
Don’t buy LG, noted. Also, maybe buying a dumb TV with great panel and then adding android fire stick that you can manage the way you want is the way all along?
No, don’t even buy LG.
I bought a dumb LG panel for my bedroom and I had to buy black enamel paint to go over the status LED. When the panel it’s off, the indicator LED it’s BRIGHT. BLUE. BLINKING. And it’s so powerful that I still see it because the light leaks from the small plastic vents. I also had to additionally insert a Shelly 1pm smart relay in the socket and program it with the logic “from 8pm to 8am if power usage is under 5 watts, cut the power; repeat the check every minute”
When the panel is on, instead, the status LED it’s off 🤷🏻♂️
I can turn off the light in the menu on mine
Or just buy whatever smart panel and do the same. Might as well take the subsidy from the smart panel and just leave it off your network
Seems hard to find those types of displays. Some people bring up commercial displays but they are expensive and it seems like a lot of then do have smart features.
Some best buy asshole convinced me to buy LG this last time because “it’s the same screen as the bravia, but lower price so you can get the sound bar too!”. Yeah fuck that, Sony doesn’t jerk me around. WebOS doesnt even fucking WORK unless you agree to every sharing option and update. Next time I’ll just pay the extra.
This, this finally made me reach back my LG TV and disconnected the Ethernet cable.
It seems TV aren’t even owner by the owners anymore. I don’t watch TV nor game anymore but seeing the amount of ads when just turning on tvs at friends houses is wild and now with this it’s doing way too much to just be a display. Whoever decides to start making dumb tvs again at mass with all the newer tech like hdr and dolby atmos in it will have a booming business but I guess no residuals after the sale no unlimited growth for investors.
For now, at least in Europe, I have removed every single ad on TV just buy going to the terms and conditions and not giving them consent. But I am using Samsung smart TV and I’m in Europe.
How the fuck would you even use it on your TV?
You don’t use it. It uses you.
You must understand: It’s not your TV, it’s LG’s, and they will do with it what ever they want, and not to your benefit. This is the future we chose.
This is the future we chose.
I don’t recall be given options.
Stallman outlined our choices and told us this is where we were headed back in the 1980’s. Since then, we have consistently made the wrong decisions. All is not lost, but the situation is dire.
The choices are there, you just have to be willing to inconvenience yourself.
You can’t shop your way out of enshittification.
We have all always had the choice to make politics something that the people do, and not something that is done to us.
My guess is voice control
