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Comment by _Microft | Hacker News Reader

This artifical interactive knowledge entity wants access to your attention and emotional state. Think "Accept" to allow permanent access [*]. Think "More info" to instantly know our privacy policy.

This is fine.

[*] We will add your technological and biological distinctiveness to our own.

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In the same way that irreversible actions on legacy keyboard systems are confirmed by typing in a series of words, MentalKeyboard will require you to think of a complex thought.

Delete all funds from your bank account? To confirm, think of a polka-dotted elephant. Otherwise, just think of anything else.

I'm not sure if you did it on purpose, but when I read:

> To confirm, think of a polka-dotted elephant.

I immediately though: How does a polka-dotted elephant look like???

I guess my bank account is blank now :( .

This would pose a different kind of problem for people with aphantasia.

"I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I loved from my childhood, something that could never, ever possibly destroy us: Mr. Stay-Puft."

You would want to offer a specific something else for the user's executive function to latch onto immediately, even if you continue to interpret anything other than the narrow confirmation pattern as "cancel", just so there isn't only one immediate, recent attractor for "think of something".

thatwasthejoke

> To confirm, think of a polka-dotted elephant.

You monster! :D

To confirm, think of a $thing continuously for 10 seconds

Resistance Is Futile

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