Although we process information, we do not do it the way that computers do.” Even to ask the question, he argues, of “whether a computer has captured the essence of human reason is a diversion, if not a trap, because the real question — do humans understand the essence of humans? — cannot be answered or resolved by technology.”

It does seem as if the primary work of attention, so to speak, is done not by the person but the machine, and this qualitatively changes the experience of being noted and attended to. Perhaps one way to say this is that when we are attended to by (or through) a machine we too readily become merely an object of analysis stripped of depth and agency,... See more