Listening on CBC radio today, the guest was a programmer from Britain who’s company is designing what’s called the Senior Companion(click for YouTube video explaining it). What this is, is a computer program that you can talk to, talks back, asks questions and eventually learns about your life enough to hold full conversations. Its linked into social networking sites, so if you have Facebook, it will bring up a photo of you, ask when and where it was taken, and who else is in it, and what their relationship is with you. Basically, according to the programmer, after about 2 years of this interaction, the program will have grown to know you better than a living person.

The original idea, which is in use now, is as the title says, its a senior’s companion, because studies show that isolated people need to talk to someone/something to keep their mind active. And for seniors who can’t leave their rooms, this product makes sense.

So this is the future of computers? Right now my computer has thousands of my photos, thousands of my favourite songs, all my personal documents, the saved internet searches and pages and basically anything to do with my life that is digital. But it can’t do anything with it. Until this next step comes along and all that information can be put together to create a digital mind that can interact with you, know you better than most humans, have full conversations with you, and link to the internet to social media sites that you are involved in.

Is that scary or what?

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