Technology

Our phones are mostly a series of disconnected experiences — Instagram is a universe entirely apart from TikTok and Snapchat and your calendar app and Gmail. That just doesn’t work for Alexa or any other successful assistant. If it knows your to-do list but not your calendar or knows your favorite kind of pizza but not your credit card number, it c

Saying “Alexa, ask AnyList to add spaghetti to my grocery list” is not seamless interaction with an all-knowing assistant; that’s having to learn a computer’s incredibly specific language just to use it properly.

Without question, technology can increase our capabilities. But there is much that technology cannot do: deal with the unpredictable, manage uncertainty, construct a soaring building, perform a lifesaving operation. In many ways, technology has complicated these matters. It has added yet another element of complexity to the systems we depend on and