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The big difference is the Star Trek computer wasn't using its data about Kirk to provide him "enhanced advertising experiences", there wasn't a big corporation controlling the computer and no government was accessing the computer's information.

A truly user-aligned AI assistant would be great. Ideally in the future these things will not be tied to indirect business models, but rather will be something you buy and all data/services will be under your control.



Capitan Kirk was a government employee. It's implied the government/StarFleet could access the ships logs.

In the Star Trek world they had no advertising because they were a communist society. Everyone dressed the same or slightly differently based on rank. It's interesting how the new movies play over that.

In Star Trek you couldn't choose your AI. In our world you can. At the start of their development most of them are targeted at selling you stuff - but the industry is young and who knows where it will go.


It would be more accurate to say that most of Star Trek depicts life in Starfleet, a pseudo-military institution (Roddenberry insisted that it isn't, while war isn't Starfleet's main purpose it shares enough traits with modern armed services to suffice for this discussion). There is always a lesser expectation of privacy for military personnel, even in the US armed services.

While there are elements of communism depicted in the Federation as a whole, those are facets of a global post-scarcity society that has somehow evolved beyond the less "progressive" bits of human behavior. I'd argue that the biggest fantasy of Star Trek isn't warp drive, but the notion that humans are somehow less violent than Klingons.


Indeed, their efforts to run the "Klingon culture is bad" thread got comically awkward in TNG, where they also really hammered on the multiculturalist "all cultures are equally valid" theme. All cultures... except for Klingons, whose barbaric and violent customs are just obviously inferior.


Yes. Also running the AI on local computer made sense because there is no incentive to run it on cloud. Since nothing is gained. Star Trek is set on post scarcity economic society. We will get there once basic income becomes the norm in all countries.




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