{"id":661737,"date":"2026-10-30T14:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T14:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/661737\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T14:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T14:08:12","slug":"using-ai-to-vibe-code-your-tv-is-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/661737\/","title":{"rendered":"Using AI to Vibe Code Your TV Is Stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, some posts on X\/Twitter and discussed elsewhere have claimed that AI has helped people \u201cvibe code\u201d their way to a better TV interface. Less clutter, no ads, less tracking and more are all ascribed to AI\u2019s magical powers. Not only is this nonsense, but it\u2019s also stupid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, let me say up front that I understand the frustration. TV interfaces have gotten bloated; they often have ads, and their creepy and invasive tracking properties have long been discussed and warned about by me and others<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That said, AI is not doing anything unique here. Not only can you do this without AI, but it\u2019s also probably better if you don\u2019t. Using AI risks potentially TV-ruining issues or worse.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s happening<\/p>\n

\u201cVibe coding\u201d is the colloquial term for using AI to assist or fully write programming code for apps, websites and so on. Instead of learning a programming language, people tell AI agents in plain English (or their language of choice) what they want, and the AI does it, or at least something close to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In this case, people are claiming they\u2019re using an AI agent, usually Claude, to write a new operating system for TVs. This \u201cnew\u201d OS is, they claim, faster, easier to use, has no ads and so on.<\/p>\n

Why it\u2019s a bad idea\u00a0<\/p>\n

As with all claims about AI, you should be suspicious. First, TV operating systems are far more complex than they appear. Messing around \u201cunder the hood,\u201d especially with no programming knowledge, can easily cause serious problems.<\/p>\n

One TV engineer I spoke to for this article, who asked to remain anonymous, literally laughed out loud when I asked him about this. He explained that his engineers will often fix one bug in their software, and it will cause 10 other bugs in random, seemingly unrelated parts of the TV. That\u2019s pretty typical with software development, by the way. There are reports already that people have \u201cbricked\u201d their TVs trying this. As in, they turned their TV into an expensive and unusable brick.<\/p>\n

\"SonyThe Google TV interface on a Sony Bravia 9 II.Ty Pendlebury\/CNET<\/p>\n

There are also a lot of potential issues down the road, even if you have initial success. For instance, will the new vibe-coded OS actually run Netflix and other apps? They might seem to load and then not be able to play anything. What happens if one of the apps needs an update? Will you still be able to? What if that update requires a specific Android version? Maybe you won\u2019t have any issues, but there\u2019s no guarantee of that, and if you don\u2019t have any background in software or coding, can you be sure that more AI vibe coding will fix the issue? Will you be able to perform a factory reset and restore it to the way it was when you bought it? Hopefully yes, but not necessarily.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not a programmer, how sure are you that the code you\u2019re using is secure? How sure are you that it\u2019s only doing what you want and not exposing your TV to external access? This isn\u2019t as likely as just breaking your TV, but if you don\u2019t know or understand what\u2019s going on \u201cunder the hood,\u201d can you really be sure?<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s the end goal here? If it\u2019s a faster interface with fewer ads, you can do that already without AI, as I\u2019ll discuss in the next section. If it\u2019s to minimize tracking, maybe changing the OS or interface will help, but not entirely<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why it\u2019s really stupid: An easier solution already exists<\/p>\n

AI can\u2019t invent anything, and you can already change your TV\u2019s interface with just an app install. Android TV launchers, as in the user interface, can be swapped out. So if your TV runs on Android, you can change the interface without any AI vibe coding. These launchers are often far simpler than the stock Google TV interface and are highly customizable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TheProjectivy Launcher<\/p>\n

Launchers like Projectivity<\/a>, Monet<\/a> and TV Launcher Premium Smart UI<\/a> are some of the top-rated and most popular ones. The AT4K Launcher<\/a> even makes your Android TV interface look like the Apple TV interface. There are many more options<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you have a TV with a company-specific operating system, like LG\u2019s webOS, Samsung\u2019s Tizen, Hisense\u2019s VIDAA and so on, the AI vibe coding trick isn\u2019t likely to work anyway. Companies do their best to lock down their operating systems to prevent exactly the kind of thing we\u2019re talking about here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TheMonet Launcher<\/p>\n

It\u2019s entirely arguable that AI wasn\u2019t doing anything clever in the first place. It was just regurgitating what human programmers had already figured out.<\/p>\n

What you can do instead<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s a hilarious irony in not wanting your personal data to be out there, so in order to block your TV from tracking you, you give your personal data to AI. If you don\u2019t understand why that\u2019s ironic, you definitely shouldn\u2019t give your data to AI. As I\u2019ve talked about before<\/a>, there is no easy way to prevent your TV from tracking you and selling your data. You can minimize it, or go to more extreme measures like Pi-holes<\/a> and not connecting it to the internet at all, but then you\u2019ll just be switching which device is tracking you. Still want streaming? All the streaming devices track you to some extent (the Apple TV 4K<\/a> less so).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TheAT4K Launcher<\/p>\n

Using AI to vibe code your way into a better TV experience, however, is a dumb idea. Try a launcher app first and see if that gets you most or all the way to what you\u2019re looking for. Will it be a magical fix to speed up a slow TV<\/a>? No, but it could be much closer to what you\u2019re looking for, and it\u2019s far less likely to nuke your TV. If you want to go even further, there are apps that give you even more control, but with more potential for issues. Or hey, if you have a TV you don\u2019t mind ruining, and you want to see what you can come up with using an AI that is just stealing from other people\u2019s work, go for it.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Geoffrey\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGeoffrey Morrison\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tContributor\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGeoffrey Morrison is a writer\/photographer about tech and travel for CNET, The New York Times, and other web and print publications. He’s also the Editor-at-Large for Wirecutter. He is the author of Budget Travel for Dummies as well as the bestselling sci-fi novels Undersea, and Undersea Atrophia. He’s NIST and ISF trained, and has a degree in Audio Production from Ithaca College. He spends most of the year as a digital nomad, living and working while traveling around the world. You can follow his travels at BaldNomad.com and on his Instagram and YouTube channel.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSee full bio\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently, some posts on X\/Twitter and discussed elsewhere have claimed that AI has helped people \u201cvibe code\u201d their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[85,46,125],"class_list":["post-661737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}