@hallmarc You don't really need any kind of general-purpose computer for even the most sophisticated engine control, either.

You can do everything a modern ECU does with a "hard-wired" ASIC, and that has many benefits:

- It FORCES the manufacturer to make sure they "get it right" before release (instead of shipping buggy software) lest they face a recall;

- It makes enshittification MUCH less likely;

- No software crashes;

- Lower stack complexity / fewer points of failure, & more...

@hallmarc I'm of the mind that if it doesn't *absolutely need* a general-purpose computer in it (most things don't), it shouldn't have a general-purpose computer in it.

Similarly, if it doesn't *absolutely need* to connect to the Internet (and very few things actually do), it shouldn't connect to the Internet.

There are risks involved with introducing unnecessary complexity/interconnection. Those risks should be avoided if at all possible, by shedding any unnecessary complexity/connectivity.

@hallmarc Problem is, marketing departments aren't likely to give up their stupid gimmicks which introduce unnecessary complexity, eat up valuable engineering time, and either fail to improve the user experience or more often actively make it worse...

Well, until said stupid gimmicks are pried from their cold, dead hands, that is.

Seriously, fuck marketing. Very, very rarely a marketing-driven decision will end up being positive - but even a broken clock is right twice a day, so...

@IrelandTorin you're also forgetting that now that it's here it has inertia. People want streaming and digital services in their car, Bluetooth, sensors for lane changing, lane assist, etc. The genie's out of the bottle.

@hallmarc Some people do.

Other people are tired of everything being shitty, glitchy, unreliable, fragile, and just generally a huge pain in the ass.

The latter segment of society is a lot bigger than you might think... the problem is almost nobody caters to that market segment because it's much harder to engage in rent-seeking behaviour when your target market hates all forms of digital enshittification.

@IrelandTorin most people do because they've been trained (or bludgeoned) to believe that the good outweighs the bad, whether it's true or not. I mean a EULA is a great example (South Park had a fantastic episode on this called HumancentiPad). You use the software, you agree to the terms. Very few people know what it says and it's extremely long by design. Even when fully apprised, people think the value is greater than the cost. It goes for almost everything in first world life these days.

@hallmarc Hmm... my experience, at least with the EULA thing, is that the people around me don't feel like it's *worth it* per se - it's that they feel like socially speaking they don't have another option.

They feel forced into it because that's what everyone else is doing, and they're afraid to step out of line or come across as weird... so they just sign in blood on the dotted line on autopilot and do their best not to think about whatever Faustian bargain they just got themselves into.

@IrelandTorin wouldn't they be unsuitable due to size/cost ratio and fragility? I mean I know that they can now be made much smaller than before but CMOS and CCD cameras are pretty well suited to the task. And yes, for cost purposes at scale, not to mention desirable features, upgradeability, and flexibility, a general computing device is going to almost always win out over analog devices or ASICS.

@hallmarc You may be surprised to learn that cost-at-scale often tilts strongly in favour of ASICs; the total silicon die area required for something like an engine ECU would be *tiny*, meaning your fab yields should be in the stratosphere, and those already super-high fab yields would be further enhanced by the use of more mature larger process nodes (unless things have changed, that probably means 28nm because that is - or at least was - the sweet spot for fab cost).

@IrelandTorin but the upfront investment for ASICs is bigger. Designing and fabricating them (and as you say getting it absolutely right) can take a lot longer. Scaling the design or upgrading takes longer. It's like building with concrete: rock solid and built to last but God forbid you need to change its design.

@IrelandTorin how do you upgrade a custom-built ASIC in millions of vehicles if something desperately needs to change?

@hallmarc Well, besides physically swapping out the ASIC, you don't.

But that is just as much a strength as a weakness - it essentially forces the manufacturer to do rigorous testing to verify that every aspect of the design works as intended before going to production... which in any safety-relevant application is a VERY good thing.

The software mindset is just bad. I say this as someone who once built software as a job.

It also ensures bad actors cannot, say, infect the system with a virus.

@IrelandTorin but designs change due to various factors, not just mission (or software) creep. Market pressures, new research, etc. In order to stay current/viable with ASICs, you'd need to over-engineer to 5, 10 years in the future. Meanwhile your competitor is pumping out designs that are easily modified and improved upon. I agree that safety designs should meet extremely high standards (look at aeronautics) and that simplicity should rule there but it always butts heads with profit.

@hallmarc If you're finding new ways to improve some metric of performance by altering the parameters of an existing engine via existing control pathways, you didn't do enough testing prior to developing your controls.

Aaaand taping out a new ASIC isn't THAT expensive. Given the scale automakers work at, & the degree of commonality between many vehicles of the same brand/family/year, they should have no problem pushing out a new ASIC every few years. Don't need a separate one for each model.