← Back to context

Comment by swarfield

7 hours ago

Makes sense but monitoring doesn't mean you have to have remote control of power.

"Utility has alerted us to an upcoming brown-out in a region impacting 40 stores. Cool everything down a few extra degrees in preparation."

  • A phone call from the HVAC company and physical thermostat dial (in a locked cabinet to prevent incompetent/malicious employees tampering with it) seems a safer solution.

    • Some grocery stores - and this is probably far more common in France - have no staff overnight.

      I think the cost/benefit equation is gonna collapse in the era of AIs exploting vulnerabilities at scale, but it's not like there's zero theoretical benefit of this capability on its own.

    • And when it happens at 3 in the morning? And when those people are in a meeting 10 miles down the road?

      Take away the security aspect and centralized management is just so much easier and reliable. Humans suck at doing things they were supposed to.