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A comment on Flickr Co-founder Unveils Her New Startup: Hunch. Parent comment

Re:Flickr Co-founder Unveils Her New Startup: Hunch by anuraggoel on Friday March 27, 2009 @08:28PM (#535952)
Calling Hunch 'silly crap' is a bit harsh, especially if you haven't tried it out yet. Let us ignore the fact that they have 'MIT scientists with backgrounds in machine learning' on their team, and that they started working on it in 2007 and launched only today. I just signed up to check it out, and the results look promising even with the limited amount of data it has about me and everyone/everything else.

Crowdsourced machine learning isn't new, but because Hunch has enough weight behind it, it might eventually become much more useful than a lot of other 'silly crap' out there. A native iPhone client for Hunch would then be quite welcome.

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Re:Flickr Co-founder Unveils Her New Startup: Hunch by jksmith on Friday March 27, 2009 @09:01PM (#535988)
Ok, I'll sign up when I have time, but I doubt this will change my mind. There's maybe a fine line between decision tools and banal self-indulgence, and my guess is this app will encourage the latter. The issue is that somebody has to ultimately take responsibility for a decision that's been made. What's the disclaimer for bad decisions? Can the site be sued? And when this happens, will the site be reprogrammed to ignore the subject it was sued over?

I assume the app will ultimately recommend that it not be used for anything but novelty purposes.

Additionally, why is it more reasonable for a MIT scientist to make a decision for you than for you to make your own? The issue I have with it has nothing to do with who worked on this app, or for how long.

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Re:Flickr Co-founder Unveils Her New Startup: Hunch by ShabbyDoo on Friday March 27, 2009 @11:03PM (#536118)
It's not like you are contractually obligated to abide by the suggestion presented. Do you ever consult others when considering something? Purchases, etc. Isn't this site just a way of codifying the advice of many rather than a few of your friends?
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