From a technical standpoint, I was disappointed in the finale. It was too outlandish that they accidentally developed an AI that could break all encryption. In real life, it almost certainly would mean that the technology gets sold off to a military enterprise. Sure, you could say something about them deciding to kill it in preservation of a free internet, and I think that’s the message they were trying to send.
Going into the finale, I had expected maybe they would open-source piper-net. I think it could have made a far better statement about sharing technology, and could have projected a far brighter future, rather than Richard losing his flash drive...
> JUDGE: Yeah, we had a series ending in mind really since season two or three. It was not this one, but it had a similar thing to it in that it was Richard (Thomas Middleditch) basically sacrificing [his company.] But it was about him open sourcing it and giving his algorithm to the world as opposed to keeping it for himself and making tons of money. Our actual ending came along just when we were writing this season when our tech consultants told us about this theoretical possibility of the end of encryption. It just seemed like the would be a stronger, more dramatic ending.
I felt the last two episodes went too much into the realm of science fiction instead of being rooted into reality like most of the series was.
Not that I have some kind of poser tech bro gush for the show... okay maybe.
This didn't happen!
They signed a deal with AT&T to build out their network.
Nowhere was this hinted at. The whole fricking idea was that they were yet to become rich and had to decide between riches and potential encryption devastation.
That was the main plot.
