The Matrix is 14 years old but Agent Smith still gives me the creeps. Not even the pointy-eared image of Elrond can erase the instant shudder I feel when I see Hugo Weaving in sunglasses and a dark skinny suit.
General Electric’s latest ad in the Brilliant Machines features the brilliantly evil villain who hunted down Neo in the science fiction movie trilogy. The ad opens with this effort to flip the image of the agent:
“I’ve found software that intrigues me. It appears it’s an agent of good.”
Then he pops up throughout the hospital: looking over a nurse’s shoulder from a big screen, watching a man get a CT scan from another screen, stalking through the halls and lurking in the ER. None of his commentary makes me feel happy, confident or comfortable about machines collecting data about me and using it to craft my treatment plan – and I am not completely opposed to the idea of robots replacing doctors!
Even the ending is bizarre. Any child who has seen The Matrix would run screaming in the other direction if he ran into Agent Smith at the hospital, as would any child offered unwrapped candy from a stranger.
GE’s healthcare division and its Healthymagination group are doing a lot of cool, amazing work that is worth talking about. Trying to use the pop culture cred of a movie villain is not the way to do it.
