4.07: Honor Among Thieves

[J-Sun]

No post on last week's ep yet? Okay, here goes...

Groves is playing it cool with Shaw's interest in International Jewel Thief Guy. As part of her criminal activities, Shaw has gotten hooked up with him and the gang but their heist turns out to be a plague and you just can't get good help these days, as the other hirelings turn on Shaw and IJTG. Meanwhile, Finch is trying to keep Samaritan from winning the hearts and minds through potentially brainwashing tablet computers being distributed to all kids.

I liked this one in that it addresses a couple of real topical issues. On the one hand, giving kids free tools that can be used for educational purposes is great. On the other, locking them into a device and corporate ecosystem that probably won't be used for education (and could be even more nefarious) isn't so good. Funneling taxpayer education dollars into Apple Corp may not be the best thing to do, y'know? And, either way, it raises the "beware of geeks bearing gifts" issue. And, of course, bioweapons would be nightmarish except that we're awake and they're real, so they're worse than nightmarish.

Fictionally, though, I missed something. I get how Samaritan can do wild things and could, say, build up a composite out of multiple angles or produce an image off a reflection of an image but, the way I saw it, Shaw was completely concealed and Samaritan is supposedly producing an image of her out of nothing. That's impossible even for Samaritan - it 360s the image from a single camera. Based on, say, echoes and what not, it could extrapolate the obstructed hallway but how the hell is it supposed to produce a partial image of Shaw's face? So what did I miss?

My favorite lines revolved around Shaw and Groves with the "I wouldn't want anyone to hurt you - anyone besides me" sorts of conversation.

 

[Dave]

Sorry, I didn't post. This is my favourite TV show at the present time.

I liked this one in that it addresses a couple of real topical issues. On the one hand, giving kids free tools that can be used for educational purposes is great. On the other, locking them into a device and corporate ecosystem that probably won't be used for education (and could be even more nefarious) isn't so good. Funneling taxpayer education dollars into Apple Corp may not be the best thing to do, y'know? And, either way, it raises the "beware of geeks bearing gifts" issue. And, of course, bioweapons would be nightmarish except that we're awake and they're real, so they're worse than nightmarish.

I hadn't realised that kind of corporate involvement in education was such a problem in the US (and what happens there invariably follows in the UK.) We do have a rash of Academy schools here, supported by a variety of businesses and individuals. Some are probably genuinely driven by altruism or corporate social responsibility, but you have to wonder when some teach Creationism.

 

[J-Sun]

Sorry, I didn't post. This is my favourite TV show at the present time.

Wasn't just you - nobody's posted yet. Sometimes I'm not inspired to post even at times that I like the episode and other times I just hold off to let someone else post if they want. This was the latter, but then I forgot to post at all. It's my favorite, too.

I hadn't realised that kind of corporate involvement in education was such a problem in the US (and what happens there invariably follows in the UK.) We do have a rash of Academy schools here, supported by a variety of businesses and individuals. Some are probably genuinely driven by altruism or corporate social responsibility, but you have to wonder when some teach Creationism.

Hm. Odd. We have private schools that'll teach anything you want but I'm not aware of outright corporate sponsored schools - maybe there are but they're usually sneakier about it or more interested in direct profit than "sponsorship" (which sounds like it would actually cost them). We just mostly get stuff like this where we're supposed to be happy about it. Good news, everyone! Only a billion bucks. Because this is the best possible way to spend education dollars and Apple needs the money.

 

[markpud]

Kids want those tablets though!

It was a fun way to twist Finch's morality though, taking down a well-intentioned company that wanted to improve the education system, but we can presume that those tablets would get a post-production software update to give Samaritan eyes and ears in thousands of homes. We've not seem any signs of the AI's using people's laptop/tablet/phone cameras to monitor people in their homes yet have we? It definitely happens already (minus the AI hopefully), there's a site out there that lets you look at cameras attached to home security systems where the owner hasn't changed the default passwords, and stories cropping up in the news about schools spying on students via their webcams.