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Comment by cryptocoder | Hacker News Reader

This is great. It would be good if all life-critical software was open-sourced like this. Maybe something that should in fact be required?

But, ”in turn, we receive support in taking our AI software to the next level of development”

I bet they are mainly looking for help. They are trying to figure out why their software is not capable to do what it is supposed to, and hoping someone can assist.

I’m ready to consult them on this if they are open to hear the bad news first...

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> life-critical software

The article could be clearer on this, but when it refers to "production", I think it means factories and logistics. (At least that's how I put together "production" in the headline with "implementing next-level production processes throughout its plants" from the first sentence.)

In other words, I think they use these algorithms in manufacturing systems, and they aren't putting this software into the cars' computers.

Looks like you’re right on this. Probably wishful thinking on my part that at least one manufacturer would be doing the right thing wrt autonomous vehicles.

It's object tracking and classification, so imagine a 2 ton robot arm swinging around a factory and failing to detect a person in the way.

Factory floors will typically have a light-curtain around things like 2 ton robot arms...

I think having the source available for inspection is a very good goal, but there is the issue of "we invested millions into it and now anybody can copy it" which would be the de-facto result even if they retained copyright on it.

You’re saying I should be forced as a developer to share the code of everything I do? That sounds pretty despotic, tbh.

I agree. But that’s not what I meant to say: only for life-critical software (think autonomous vehicles, airplanes, medical robots and devices).

Why not? If a person perceives proprietary software to be harmful, as a lot of people do, then it only follows there should be laws against it. Or, alternatively, if they see it like they do speech, others should be able to decompile it, comment, and redistribute it without consequence.

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