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Let people run their own software. If they kill someone, hold them liable. If deaths become endemic, then consider locking them down. As many comments on these

Let people run their own software. If they kill someone, hold them liable. If deaths become endemic, then consider locking them down. As many comments on these stories demonstrate, farmers have as much valid reasons to have control over their equipment as John Deere has for preventing it. Technology is always about trade-offs. It's just that John Deere took things too far.

foepys 10y ago
> If deaths become endemic, then consider locking them down. As much as I dislike John Deer's strategy, your statement is just stupid. Waiting for people do die before you regulate to make it safer doesn't work. Look at Ford who calculated that saving $x on a component was worth it if only y people die and their relatives sue.
- goodplay 10y ago
  That component you refer to was necessary for the safe usage of the vehicle. If it fails, bad things would happen (and they did). Having control over your tractor does not necessarily kill people. Death is not inherently implied by farmers merely having access. Apples and oranges. Equating the two is silly. Most people won't be adding in gotos and if statements, they'll be replacing borken parts and getting their tractors working again. Those few who actually do end up writing code for it, and those who opt to run it, will do so with the full knowledge that it'll be their asses on the line when something goes wrong. Either way, my point was that people won't die from access unless they do something really stupid, and death due to stupidity is going to occur regardless of whether the tractor is locked down or not.
  - foepys 10y ago
    > Those few who actually do end up writing code for it, and those who opt to run it, will do so with the full knowledge that it'll be their asses on the line when something goes wrong. In a world where extremely dangerous phone chargers are getting bought just because they are cheap, I cannot imagine that your views are correct. People are putting active fire hazards into their homes and other people are building them in full knowledge that the components used are inadequate. Yes, people should be able to repair their machines and change single components but it should be guaranteed that basic safety functionality is working. I'm not talking about something where a farmer personally modifies their own machine. I'm talking about manufacturers that build cheap replacement parts.
- RugnirViking 10y ago
  It does and can work. Source: The aerospace industry
eaceaser 10y ago
Think about what you just said for a second. "endemic" deaths of innocent people are the litmus test for whether software should be locked down? How is that in any way acceptable?
- bartl 10y ago
  Traffic accidents happen. According to your reasoning, we should forbid people from owning and driving a car.
  - eaceaser 10y ago
    No, that is not my reasoning. I'm not talking at all about people operating or using devices that carry inherent danger to themselves or others. I'm specifically responding to the parent's argument about what counts as an acceptable threshold at which it becomes okay to compromise an owner's ability to modify these machines. The parent said that its only acceptable AFTER some nontrivial number of deaths, presumably of people in addition to the owner of the machine. A related question I want to ask is: what is inherent about software that makes it not okay to have restrictions on modifications where lives other than the owner's may be at stake? I see other comments here that say things like "oh these machines should have mechanical limiters etc. that prevent them from being dangerous." But isn't that essentially the same thing, just implemented in hardware and not software? I'd like to note that I'm not saying that John Deere is in the right here. I just feel that the argument in the parent comment is, for lack of a better word, inhumane.
- goodplay 10y ago
  My bet is that the few deaths that will initially occur, will be due to stupidity, rather than the ability to fix your property. If people thought like you did, we wouldn't have kitchen knifes.

foepys 10y ago

> If deaths become endemic, then consider locking them down. As much as I dislike John Deer's strategy, your statement is just stupid. Waiting for people do die before you regulate to make it safer doesn't work. Look at Ford who calculated that saving $x on a component was worth it if only y people die and their relatives sue.

goodplay 10y ago
That component you refer to was necessary for the safe usage of the vehicle. If it fails, bad things would happen (and they did). Having control over your tractor does not necessarily kill people. Death is not inherently implied by farmers merely having access. Apples and oranges. Equating the two is silly. Most people won't be adding in gotos and if statements, they'll be replacing borken parts and getting their tractors working again. Those few who actually do end up writing code for it, and those who opt to run it, will do so with the full knowledge that it'll be their asses on the line when something goes wrong. Either way, my point was that people won't die from access unless they do something really stupid, and death due to stupidity is going to occur regardless of whether the tractor is locked down or not.
- foepys 10y ago
  > Those few who actually do end up writing code for it, and those who opt to run it, will do so with the full knowledge that it'll be their asses on the line when something goes wrong. In a world where extremely dangerous phone chargers are getting bought just because they are cheap, I cannot imagine that your views are correct. People are putting active fire hazards into their homes and other people are building them in full knowledge that the components used are inadequate. Yes, people should be able to repair their machines and change single components but it should be guaranteed that basic safety functionality is working. I'm not talking about something where a farmer personally modifies their own machine. I'm talking about manufacturers that build cheap replacement parts.
RugnirViking 10y ago
It does and can work. Source: The aerospace industry

eaceaser 10y ago

Think about what you just said for a second. "endemic" deaths of innocent people are the litmus test for whether software should be locked down? How is that in any way acceptable?

bartl 10y ago
Traffic accidents happen. According to your reasoning, we should forbid people from owning and driving a car.
- eaceaser 10y ago
  No, that is not my reasoning. I'm not talking at all about people operating or using devices that carry inherent danger to themselves or others. I'm specifically responding to the parent's argument about what counts as an acceptable threshold at which it becomes okay to compromise an owner's ability to modify these machines. The parent said that its only acceptable AFTER some nontrivial number of deaths, presumably of people in addition to the owner of the machine. A related question I want to ask is: what is inherent about software that makes it not okay to have restrictions on modifications where lives other than the owner's may be at stake? I see other comments here that say things like "oh these machines should have mechanical limiters etc. that prevent them from being dangerous." But isn't that essentially the same thing, just implemented in hardware and not software? I'd like to note that I'm not saying that John Deere is in the right here. I just feel that the argument in the parent comment is, for lack of a better word, inhumane.
goodplay 10y ago
My bet is that the few deaths that will initially occur, will be due to stupidity, rather than the ability to fix your property. If people thought like you did, we wouldn't have kitchen knifes.