It’s an obvious, but underappreciated, fact that technology reshapes reality. But we don’t often think about it much less care about it. If you even spend a minute thinking about just how much of the shape of our lives is sculpted by the technologies we use and rely on, your mind will be blown, and I’m not even talking about AI – just all the regular technologies we use from Google Maps, Messenger apps, smartphones, and thermostats.

This came to my mind as I was reading this thoughtful article by Alastair Benn:

The irony is that modern life has made redundant many of the routines which were once indispensable to passing language oral examinations. Buying a ticket at a railway station is now either entirely automated or conducted online. The last time I bought a ticket in person, I did so purely for the novelty of stating my destination to another human being, and at what date and time I intended to leave and return. The number of moments in daily life that require people to articulate themselves in a shared, formal register has shrunk markedly, even compared with the recent past.