Re:Mother
by bloaf on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @01:04PM
(#7064884)
I honestly couldn't tell if this was a real product or some sort of parody at first. I half expected it to be produced by Aperture Science. I don't blame you.
I don't think the issue is the data collection. I think most of us here would admit that slicing and dicing data about yourself is fun (e.g. see [1]) and that an unobtrusive tool to help collect that data is a good idea. The problem is their deliberate overt anthropomorphism. I'm perfectly comfortable with a system for recording data points about my life in some database on my computer, I'm significantly less comfortable with someone monitoring me and telling me about my life.
I don't think the issue is the data collection. I think most of us here would admit that slicing and dicing data about yourself is fun (e.g. see [1]) and that an unobtrusive tool to help collect that data is a good idea. The problem is their deliberate overt anthropomorphism. I'm perfectly comfortable with a system for recording data points about my life in some database on my computer, I'm significantly less comfortable with someone monitoring me and telling me about my life.
[1] http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/03/the-personal-analytic...
I don't think it is a coincidence that at least three different franchises have used "Mother Brain" as the name for their malevolent AI.