Iowa farmers are leading the fight for repair

(ifixit.com)

58 points by gnabgib4 hours ago

1 comments

slopinthebag2 hours ago
Do we need right to repair anymore with AI? Could you get Claude to code an entire tractor software and flash it onto your own hardware and put it in the tractor? In other words just use the tractor for it's hardware?
- superice1 hour ago
 Aside from the legal question whether the manufacturer allows you to do so, I’m pretty excited about somebody vibe coding firmwire to a 35 ton machine with a bunch of big attachments at the back and plenty of ways to mangle the bodies of careless operators without the rpm so much as audibly rising from strain. Should give us plenty of videos to traumatize the next generation of children with a little bit too much internet access at an early age. I feel nostalgic for those days.(This is sarcasm, pretty please don’t vibe code car firmware, let alone anything more dangerous than that)
 - slopinthebag1 hour ago
 As long as you have a sufficient test suite you could probably run a Ralph Wiggum loop and have it brute force it. Creating the test suite would be harder though.
 - superice23 minutes ago
 I've never been fond of the argument that there should be a professional software engineer certification, but hearing people like you being presented with the potential dangers and just going 'oh yeah just go with a better test suite and you can just wing it' makes me seriously reconsider.Vibe code administrative systems for your local golf club to your hearts desire for all I care, god forbid somebody will have to stand around a bit longer before going for their 9 holes. But safety critical equipment is not the place to fuck around with the code prediction machines that have existed for 4 years, have been writing more-or-less acceptable code for 2, and will still regularly refer to themselves as MechaHitler or just make up shit. "Yes you're absolutely correct, I was wrong" doesn't help you one bit if you have just been chewed up by heavy machinery, and the fact that people like you exist who go 'oh just a few more more unit tests surely will fix it' is a terrifying thought.
- doodlebugging5 minutes ago
 1. Yes 2. Maybe, probably not though. It's complicated 3. No
- b00ty4breakfast1 hour ago
 What a great idea! what could possibly go wrong allowing farmers with no expertise in writing firmware for gigantic farm equipment, overseeing code output from an LLM and then uploading it to the aforementioned gigantic farm equipment?Let's just ignore the part where this wouldn't even address the problem at hand!
- gnatman2 hours ago
 That’s not what this is about, it’s about access to dealership level diagnostic software.But you don’t have to wait for the farmers, you could “get Claude to code an entire car software and flash it onto your own hardware and put it in your car.” Post back here with your results!
 - slopinthebag56 minutes ago
 Code is basically free now, I don't see why you can't just write the diagnostic software yourself. In 6-12 months you won't even need diagnostic software, Claude will be able to just generate custom introspection and diagnostic code tailored to the exact issue.
 - electroglyph24 minutes ago
 because all the shit is locked down and the corpos can use state violence to stop you from doing so if you manage to succeed
- kmeisthax1 hour ago
 Half the process of jailbreaking electronics involves reverse-engineering. There's some promising work in that direction, but reverse-engineering is still not AI's strong suit.Also, you'll actually need to hook up Claude to all the debug interfaces and pins present on the chip you're trying to break.Also also, if this worked at all the feds would put a gun to Anthropic's head to make Claude refuse to do anything that might break DMCA 1201.Law is code.