Tangentially, I have a very nice laser cutter with terrible software (xtool p3). Their electron app is a nightmare of poor usability and unwanted “value adds”, while basic stuff like defining order or paths to cut is somewhere between opaque and broken. And the process of exporting DXF, importing to their software, positioning, setting per-path power and speed… such a PITA.

It took claude an hour or two to reverse the gcode dialect and camera controls. Now I just tell it what to cut, load the material, and claude sorts out where to place the work, power, speed, variations for corners and stuff, and cuts. If there’s difficulty I pop the work on a scanner and claude diagnoses and adjusts.

It is going to be very hard to control anything that’s in consumer hands, whether for good or bad reasons.