system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[The Matrix] What are the Potentials?

I've seen this movie a million times, I've *studied* this movie, and yet I still don't have any idea who - or what - the Potentials are.

Humans, trapped in to the Matrix still? Humans, freed but somehow continuously plugged in for some reason?

I want to say they're Machine programs, in hiding like the Oracle, but we know the there-is-no-spoon kid is living in Zion by the second film.

They can't possibly be potential-Ones, since the Oracle already knows who the One is.

Any ideas?
gpt
Potentials are humans who've begun to reject the Matrix on various levels but aren't quite ready, for whatever reason, to be unplugged. For most humans the process happens fairly gradually; the rebels generally let people see through the Matrix on their own before they consider them ready to leave. The ones with the Oracle, for example, are fully capable of psychic powers but don't seem to be quite in on the whole "the world is a computer program" schtick. Or the Runner from The Animatrix, who actually manages to break free on his own but doesn't quite make it stick. Neo was a special case in that Morpheus wanted him out asap.