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.
i wish they at bare minimum let you opt out.
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.
Have you tried to buy a non-smart TV recently?
I just picked one with a nice screen, didn’t connect it to wifi, and set it to turn on to the last used input. Bam. Dumb TV.
Since it can’t be LG anymore - what’s a good TV screen for gaming?
I disagree that it can’t be LG anymore since it’s still a basic TV so long as you don’t connect it to the internet. Use the TV as a TV and use an Nvidia Shield, Chromecast, etc to do your internet stuff.
I called a terrible IT person for suggesting not connecting smart TVs to the network as a simple means of by passing the issue with their updates and invasion of privacy. I think it’d be easier to do that and hook up an old computer for streaming from.
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.
Also enable Game Mode which typically turns off some of the smart TV functions.
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!
My next tv (don’t have one) is just gonna be attached to a laptop by hdmi. That’s it.
Meet ACR
Do not connect it to your network. It cannot do spying if ot cannot connect.
Oh geez I just went and disconnected my TV from WiFi, I dunno why I had it connected in the first place, I use a separate box thingy for all the services. I’m getting so sick of constantly being perceived and surveilled by stuff all around me.
Holy shit, I had no idea that exists. My next TV will be a monitor with no internet access.
I’m in the process of making all our media sources and tech independent, starting with my dad’s laptop. I’ve already set up easy remote access so I can always help him with anything. I am NEVER using mainstream shit from now on.
Thrift stores usually have some older dumb TVs if youre okay with 1080p, and Sceptre still makes dumb consumer-grade TVs if you are willing to shop on Amazon or at Walmart
What i don’t get is there is clearly a market here. Why doesn’t some lesser Known TV manufacturer make a dumb TV and steal all those customers from the big ones.
Because they can’t see past the profit generating potential of selling your data.
The common “why doesn’t someone just make a ‘dumb’ TV for people who don’t want this crap?” question has an easy answer. Dumb TVs do exist, they’re called “commercial monitors” or “commercial displays” and just show the audiovisual signal given to them by whatever else you hook up, in the manner of old TVs before additional apps or spyware were a thing. As implied by the name, stores and other businesses use them to show what they want without the added guff of the apps and ads they wouldn’t be able to fully control.
Important detail: commercial displays tend to be fuckoff expensive compared to smart TVs of comparable size, quality, and feature set.
“Hey,” you may be thinking, “how do they get away with charging so big a premium for an appliance with fewer features?” And you wouldn’t be out of line to think that. However, what’s going on is more insidious.
The higher price of a “dumb” TV is more correctly thought of as the real price of the appliance. The reason you pay so much less for a comparable “smart” TV is because the companies behind all the apps and spyware, the preinstalled shovelware apps which get you interested to subscribe to their services (Netflix, Hulu, Prime, etc.) and/or send you advertisements, as well as the spyware companies who profit from all the data about you that gets phoned home as you use the thing, pay the hardware manufacturers to put their shit software onto the device at the factory. That money made by the manufacturer from the shit companies goes, at least partially, toward lowering the price of the TV to entice you to pick it up at the store instead of a competitor’s TV.
Look at that big chunk of money you save buying a smart TV over a comparable dumb display, and consider that the shit companies are paying the manufacturer that amount or more for the opportunity to monetize you and your household.
Then, if you have the wherewithal to pay what is now easily considered a ridiculous amount more for an appliance that isn’t part of a system meant to take permanent advantage of you, you can just buy the commercial display instead. Alternatively, you can find clever technological ways to buy the cheaper “smart” one but counteract the ways in which it monetizes you, whether technical ways like jailbreaking or installing alternative OSes (some very early-stage efforts to get this sort of thing going are out there, but still very scattershot compared to the scene for doing so to smartphones) or simpler methods like just never letting the thing onto the Internet no matter how much it begs or enshittifies your user experience (a strategy which will stop working once it becomes cheap enough for the shit companies to just include their own connectivity hardware in the device which uses its own wireless and doesn’t need your network.)
It’s a continuing battle.
That was an excellent explanation. Thanks.
Like I just said, Sceptre does. :P
Even monitors are having smart TV antifeatures added. Soon you won’t be able to find a “dumb monitor” — and this is why.
I know it’s not a fix all
But a Pi-hole prevents a lot of this collected data from ever leaving your network to begin with.
If for some reason someone turns on the wifi on my LG tv (I have teenagers and their friends), I have the device itself blacklisted from the network.
But that’s not a reasonable level of granularity for a typical user. We need privacy protection laws to end this sort of behavior from manufacturers.
Good luck getting either party to do so with the amount of corporate money thrown their way. :/ You might be able to shout at the Dems to do something but it’ll be a half measure of allowing an opt out system.
Could not possibly agree more.
These companies need to be held accountable.
There are ways to keep yourself somewhat safe for now.
Yeah, my smart TVs are the noisiest devices on my network, by far. In a day of heavy usage where I’m doomscrolling and constantly scrolling past ads, my phone may log ~2500 blocked requests. My Roku and Samsung TVs both average around 7000 blocked requests per day, even when we haven’t used them at all. That’s a request to their data-harvesting and ad servers getting blocked every ~12 seconds, even when they’ve been turned “off” all day.
Yup. Make sure it’s not a “smart” TV with a WiFi connection. LG was one of three TV companies (Visio and Samsung were the others) that got caught spying on their TVs HDMI connection and sending usage data on connected devices back to their manufacturers through the WiFi connection.
A wifi connection to where? Were people using unprotected networks?
Vision TVs have built-in WiFi to promote their own, garbage tier streaming service. So you need to connect it to your home WiFi network to use it. But they can also monitor the TVs HDMI port.
So if you have a Roku or a DVD player connected to it, the TV can monitor what’s coming into the HDMI port and then use your WiFi connection to send that info home.
I noticed the Visio is very aggressive about you enabling the WiFi connection even if you just want to use it as a monitor. (i.e. if you disable the TVs WiFi, it will nag you to turn it back on every time you turn the TV on and not let you use the TV until you do it). I’m guessing this is deliberate because Visio values collecting the HDMI data more than their streaming service.
Get a monitor, you don’t need a wall sized tv. I got a pair of Displayport monitors for free, and they perform admirably.
I think the one I have is 50 inch and I think it could be a bit smaller, yeah. A monitor might work better . I just use it for my switch and some tv shows/ambiance.
Ive been eyeing up signage displays and 50"+ gaming monitors.
I don’t want the smart in my display, I want the smart attached to my display.
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.
I’d assume microsoft is writing them a fat check to do so
Yeh and their own ‘R and D’ may have been leverage in the negotiation.
one of the many prices you pay letting a “Smart” TV connect to the internet.
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.
Sony is also a terrible company with a long history of anti-consumer behaviour.
That’s fine, I now own both and I can say objectively that LG is way worse to work with and Sony has been easy. I have money, I want a TV. I don’t want LG.
Back to crt. Analog everything
Back to flashlights and shadow puppets
I saw a 16:9 CRT in the trash a few years ago, it had just started to rain, the time it took to arrange secure transport it was soaked, so I passed. I didn’t feel like I could deal with the size and weight of the thing if I had to repair it as well.
But they do show up now and then.
