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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:10 PM
Enter AI. Thanks to vibe-coding, everyday people are rolling their own software for their devices *and* building the tools to shatter the digital locks that manufacturers use to block disenshittification. An excellent article by 404 Media's Jason Koebler runs down some of these hacks, including drop-in replacements for smart TV software that blocks the endless ads and surveillance that have made TVs all but unusable:
https://www.404media.co/reverse-engineer-anything-is-the-new-wild-west-of-ai/
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:11 PM
These AI tools mix several techniques to disenshittify users' devices. One major component is automating the installation of existing alternative firmware for these devices that have been (possibly illegally) created by hobbyists and uploaded to various code repositories. Installing these alternative OSes is typically a gnarly task, requiring the user to do a lot of complex, fiddly, highly technical work to bypass their devices' digital locks.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:11 PM
In a world without anticircumvention law, a company that sold alternative OSes could hire a ton of programmers and UX developers to smooth over this process, but this is beyond the reach of a typical hobbyist or even a community of hobbyists, especially if they must operate in the shadows, under the threat of civil and criminal liability.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:12 PM
There's a useful analogy here to the trajectory of desktop versions of GNU/Linux. The first time I tried to install Linux (on an original iMac, in the late 1990s), the installation process included a multi-week post-installation wrangle that saw me (often unsuccessfully) compiling key modules from source code and then painstakingly configuring them to get the computer's graphics and I/O working reliably.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:12 PM
Fast forward 30+ years and installing Linux is trivial, thanks to highly capitalized companies like Canonical (makers of Ubuntu, the flavor of Linux I've used for nearly 20 years now). Installing Ubuntu today merely requires that you download the OS to a thumbdrive, reboot your computer using the drive as a startup disk, and click "install." Canonical's installer automatically hunts down the correct software for your hardware and configures it.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:13 PM
Canonical writes and contributes to a lot of parts of the Linux OS, but the most important work it does is the fiddly, painstaking, labor- and capital-intensive work of perfecting that installer so it Just Works.
Much of what a vibe-coded jailbreaking tool does is stand in for Canonical, but for hobbyist OSes for smart TVs and speakers and many other devices.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:13 PM
These LLMs patiently research every weird error and peccadillo and parse through message boards and logfiles detailing other hobbyists' struggles to get the code working and methodically apply and adapt those solutions until your device Just Works.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:14 PM
Some of these vibe-coded interop tools go farther than that. According to Koebler's coverage, some device owners had their coding assistants scratch-build entirely new, heavily customized OSes for their devices, complete with bypasses that allow this new code to be installed despite the manufacturer's countermeasures which are designed to prevent this. Delightfully, many of these users have created software that revives their bricked, discontinued devices.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:14 PM
This poses the possibility of a world in which manufacturers no longer have the last word in your use of your own property: the mere fact that the manufacturer lost interest in a device and killswitched it does not mean that you must consign that valuable device to a landfill to become immortal, toxic e-waste.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:14 PM
All of this is good news. Some of the most sophisticated jailbreaking tools (such as those on the super viral "Reverse Engineer Anything" Github page) run locally, on your own computer, without invoking the "frontier models" that the big, awful AI companies have created:
https://github.com/morluto/rea
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:15 PM
This is good even if you're just modifying your own devices to get them to more closely conform to your own use-case. LLMs are genuinely good at coming up with the abstruse and obscure configuration lines and other incantations to get your technology working. Recently, I used a local model to fine-tune the power-management on my new laptop in ways that go beyond the options that are exposed through user-friendly graphic interfaces.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:16 PM
The LLM spat out a grub "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT" line that (again) Just Worked.
The last time I had to do this, I spent days painstakingly trouble-shooting options by trial-and-error. Using a chatbot to fill in the gaps left by decisions about which configuration options to place within reach of regular users and which to reserve for power-users has made my computer much more useful to me for the things I want to do, like writing and making collages.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:17 PM
The reality is that it's just not practical for technology developers to turn every conceivable function of your computer into a simple-to-use, accessible tool. A large part of technology design is about leaving things out (or, as my favorite Eno Oblique Strategy goes, "Be the first person to not do something that no one else has ever thought of not doing before").
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:17 PM
No matter how thoughtful and diligent a technology designer is, they will never fully anticipate the needs and exigencies of their users. That's why the motto of the disability rights movement is "Nothing about us without us."
The users of technology know more about their use-cases than can ever be captured through a requirements gathering exercise and user testing.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:17 PM
One of the best and proudest legacies of technology is the lineage of "user-friendly" programming tools that let nontechnical people design their own applications that exactly met their needs, from Hypercard to Visual Basic to Scratch, a lineage that vibe-coding tools are arguably part of:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/09/25/other-people/#right-there
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:17 PM
But these tools are not perfect (nothing is). For all that Hypercard lets you do *many* things that would otherwise require a skilled programmer, it was also always limited relative to, say, writing MacOS code in Objective C. Your Hypercard program might do *exactly* what you needed it to, but slowly, and sometimes unreliably, and with serious limitations, such as a relatively low ceiling for the number of records you could add to a database.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:18 PM
Vibe-coded personal apps aren't necessarily subject to these limitations, but they come with some significant risks. Vibe-code can have serious security vulnerabilities that expose the user to things like identity theft or sextortion.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:18 PM
It's conceivable that a vibe-coded garage-door opener app might make it possible for attackers to open your garage door when you're not home (or worse, when you are!). Depending on your risk-tolerance and expertise, these might be acceptable prices, or they might be too high.
But it's important to clearly identify the problem here: if the alternative OS you install on your smart TV exposes you to privacy-invading hack attacks, the problem is the *defect* in that software.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:18 PM
The problem *isn't* that you had the temerity to rip out the manufacturer's own software and replace it with code of your choosing. You bought that TV, it's yours, and you don't owe the manufacturer an obligation to expose yourself to its own, built-in, intentional surveillance and invasive ads.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:19 PM
Here's a parallel: you have the right to put any shoelaces in your running shoes. Sure, Nike might prefer you to lace up your Jordans with its expensive OEM laces, but that's Nike's problem, not yours. Now, Nike might argue that by using no-name laces, you run the risk of having a lace break while you're running, which could also break your ankle. That's certainly a possibility: shoelaces do break, and Nike might be justifiably proud of the quality of its laces.
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Cory Doctorowpluralistic@mamot.fr
Oct 21, 2026, 8:19 PM
But if your generic laces snap (and so does your ankle), the problem is that the shoelaces you chose were defective. The problem is *not* that you chose someone else's laces.
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Jonathan Buysjonathanbuys@hci.social
Oct 21, 2026, 8:18 PM
@pluralistic Good grief. Long thread is no lie.
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