Regarding "Fridge Logic: If cookies are computer programs...", I disagree. If cookies were computer programs, they should be capable of simply being programmed, instead of having to absorb the owner's mind for a few weeks. As a Computer Engineer, my interpretation is that the cookie is a neural network as big as a human brain. You can directly program a neural network, but that is only trivial for really small ones. For bigger ones, you're forced to make them go through learning algorithms, which is what cookies do when "installed" in a person's brain. They do that because neural networks have great processing power, but are quite difficult to be used successfully. Considering Black Mirror's future, it's much easier to make a copy of a person's mind, which can learn to do who knows how many tasks, than to write a program, where every function have to be programmed individually. That's why it's not possible to simply download data to a cookie's neural network, because it's equivalent to doing the same to a human's brain.
Regarding the name "cookie": I completely forgot about browser cookies. The first thing I thought was blockbuster bombs, which were called "Cookies" and were used by the British in WW 2. Makes about as much impact as this episode but, yes, browser cookies were the intended meaning.
Regarding "Fridge Logic: If cookies are computer programs...", I disagree. If cookies were computer programs, they should be capable of simply being programmed, instead of having to absorb the owner's mind for a few weeks. As a Computer Engineer, my interpretation is that the cookie is a neural network as big as a human brain. You can directly program a neural network, but that is only trivial for really small ones. For bigger ones, you're forced to make them go through learning algorithms, which is what cookies do when "installed" in a person's brain. They do that because neural networks have great processing power, but are quite difficult to be used successfully. Considering Black Mirror's future, it's much easier to make a copy of a person's mind, which can learn to do who knows how many tasks, than to write a program, where every function have to be programmed individually. That's why it's not possible to simply download data to a cookie's neural network, because it's equivalent to doing the same to a human's brain.
Regarding the name "cookie": I completely forgot about browser cookies. The first thing I thought was blockbuster bombs, which were called "Cookies" and were used by the British in WW 2. Makes about as much impact as this episode but, yes, browser cookies were the intended meaning.