What would the (capitalist) world be like in the 21st century if companies didn’t care about getting better?
Google is one of them. Its engineers are working on an application (its experimental name is Reply, and it looks like it will stick for commercial use) that will respond on behalf of mobile owners to the messages they receive… if they (the owners) have something better to do at that time. “You may want to deal with the ‘real world’ but not lose your electronic communications” says the well-meaning company… Fortunately, they thought of it!
Your skepticism will consider such applications entirely “brave new world.” But here are practical uses: you’re on the road and receive a friendly message asking “what time should I pass by the house?” Why bother? The application will combine your location, your home’s location (via GPS data), the speed at which you’re moving (it will infer, that is, whether you’re walking or traveling by vehicle), will factor in traffic conditions on the road to the house, and will respond!
There is a possibility that at some point these “highly intelligent” applications will communicate with each other on behalf of their owners, asking questions, answering, and perhaps even becoming friends.
And so? It’s time these opportunities for collecting personal data make you antisocial and jealous; to start, that is, thinking that maybe the person on the other end of the signal has put it on “automatic” because they’re tired of you or, even worse, is “cheating” on you…