Agreed. I love the optimism of the author, but people who'd update firmware on their e.g. tv, even if it were a simple ask to a future omniscient LLM, are vanishingly few. As well, when control of firmware and data is a massive part of your ROI, manufacturers will fight changes tooth and legal nail. We need to distinguish between the world we wished we lived in (and here I'll 172.2% agree with author and fellow HackerNewsers), vs the one we actually live in - where most people are apathetic to most things. Even going to the setting menu and unchecking "destroy my privacy with massive data sucking" is too much for most people (including my intelligent and educated significant other, despite more than a decade of attempts :).

The mwave fm1 already targets a particularly nerdy, tinkering crowd in a very niche segment. No way Samsung and Sony relinquish their grip on TV, fridge or washing machine firmware :-(. I suspect instead the arms race between manufacturers trying to lock up and control their system, and hackers trying to breach it, will simply move up one level until it resembles Neuromancer AIs fighting that much more :).

And for a really cynical take - given LLMS will recommend the way they've been trained to recommend, how much longer until organic LLM agent recommendations are sponsored at the training and system prompt and harness levels?

Edit / update : not to mention, I think there are already more than 200 firwmares available for the fm1. How long until one or more of them is malicious or just bricks your device, giving most people reason to not dabble, and manufacturers the obvious scapegoat double down on "security".