We really seem to indulge in dystopian thinking. And we love it. And I really wonder why that happens. I don’t know how you feel about this, but it really stresses me out. And it kind of bothers me that it’s still a lot of times easier to imagine the end of the world than how we could live on a sustainable planet.
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Star Trek’s vision of a voice interface to computing was and remains incredibly compelling. So much to the extent that about three years ago, Amazon included “Computer” as a wake word to the Echo so that we can pretend to talk to the first mass-market voice assistant as if we’re on a spaceship in the 24th century.
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As a human-centered designer what is my role, what is our role, in this kind of bigger picture? If this is the dominant lens of society, what’s our contribution?