While I don't watch much anime, I'm a sucker for anything in a cyberpunk universe. I'm rewatching Ergo Proxy and this week's Apple Child Safety news reminded me of a concept in the show.
There are androids called "autoreivs" in this dystopian future. One type is called an Entourage and it is assigned to a particular human. They are a personal assistant and follow the person around, chauffeur, and even act as a bodyguard.
Yet an Entourage isn't just an assistant. They also *monitor* their human, warn them when their behavior falls outside of society norms, remind them of rules, and report them to the authorities.
So the Entourage is simultaneously a very helpful assistant *and* a tool of the state to keep a person in line. It's hard not to see parallels in Apple's client-side scanning of Photos, messages, and search queries for contraband.
