Conversation

Yet another proprietary technology that does not work without it’s parent company, is becoming e-waste because the company will no longer support it (due to going out of business). It is even worse when this thing happens to machines implanted into your body, fortunately this time it is “only” a very expensive, animate, talking children’s toy that is now dead and their kids can no longer play with it, unless they are OK with it no longer talking or moving it’s face.

We need better legislation regulating the #RightToRepair . There also needs to be more of an effort to educate people about why you must not trust closed source consumer electronics, and that if you do want to buy something like this, try to #BuyItForLife . Although in our mostly unregulated market economy that is likely never to happen since right-to-repair, and consumers well-educated about proprietary technology, tend to slightly reduce profits for these companies.

Consumers need to know that they should not just buy any nice, shiny, high-tech thing they see, especially for their kids, unless they first check what will happen to the device if the company that made it decides to drop support. If the device requires an Internet connection, the odds are it will stop working at an inopportune time. If it is open source, it is more likely you can find someone to fix it even after the company no longer supports it. Understand this before you make your purchase.

https://aftermath.site/moxie-robot-ai-dying-llm-embodied

#AI #christmas #toys #ConsumerElectronics #FLOSS #FreeSoftware