Comment by socalgal2
17 hours ago
> I would trust the people that hack on these systems to be even more motivated than the manufacturers to make sure they don't fuck up
I would think it's the opposite. People that hack on this only risk their own life. Companies risk many people's lives and will get sued. Of course the person doing the hacking doesn't want to die but they're also willing to take the risk.
The absolute worst-case scenario of messing this up as a company is that you get sued and they win, or you're forced to settle. You pay out some money, post a public apology, whatever. If things get really bad, the company goes under. But you're likely still far richer than the average person, and the blame is distributed enough that no one gets a criminal sentence - not that it was a realistic option to begin with.
The baseline worst-case scenario of messing this up on yourself is that you die.
>People that hack on this only risk their own life
Yeah, only their own life, yknow, something not particularly valuable or motivating to conserve for them, as opposed to the companies financials!
> People that hack on this only risk their own life.
Provided they do not risk anyone elses, that is entirely their right.
Right, but getting sued is basically the least risky activity ever. Okay, a little dramatic but: you won't go to jail, and if you're rich and become less rich you're still better off than most people. In pure absolutionist terms, being a business owner is basically always less risky than being labor.
A lot of the other responses say something along the lines of "of course people have more incentive not to mess up, they care about their own lives more than corporations care about getting sued" and sure, that's true in general, but:
- people try to wingsuit through narrow obstacles and miss
- people try to build their own planes and helicopters and die
- people try to build submersible vehicles to go see the titanic and, uh, don't have a 100% success rate
- people try to build steam-powered rockets and die
"It's their life, they won't fuck it up" doesn't exactly cover a lot of behaviors.
I'd argue home-rolling your own medical device firmware is closer to daredevil/"hold my beer" behavior than normal.
None of these have anything to do with your average diabetic loop hacker. You are comparing people that live for the thrills with people that are just trying to live.
They're also people who had a lot of confidence in their own skills (including thinking they knew better than others) and ended up being wrong.
I would say that can have a lot to do with your average diabetic loop hacker.
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