As a certified (late) Gen X-er, I like to consider that I have largely kept pace with technology—but curiously, if there’s anything that makes me feel old, it’s a technology that has existed all my life: the humble television. Gather round, children, because back in my day, you had five channels to choose from, and if none of them were showing anything good, you went back to trying to guess your way past the questions that stood between you and the forbidden world of Leisure Suit Larry.

Today’s “smart” TVs, by comparison, are a goddamn nightmare. I inherited one such hellish device from my late mother, and trying to navigate its endless cascading menus, bewildering array of subscription services and weird sort-of-but-not-really operating system made me yearn for the days of just being able to turn on the TV and watch the cricket. (God only knows what my mother made of the thing, considering that her generation was old enough to recall the actual advent of television in Australia.)

Happily, it seems I’m not alone —and if a trendpiece about people “using AI to make their smart TVs dumb again” is to be believed, people are taking matters into their own hands.

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