[Dean's World] G. Willow Wilson: Woah I am totally in the first world

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by G. Willow Wilson:
Woah I am totally in the first world
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1202519465.shtml


   I just ordered a pizza from Dominos and the entire time I was on the
   phone I was talking to a computer. It understood me when I said "half
   mushroom, half green pepper." It sounded like an actual human being. I
   had to restrain myself from saying "thanks" at the end of the
   transaction.

   Before I left the US the only time I'd ever talked to a computer was
   2000-ish, when United lost one of my bags en route to somewhere. Their
   lost baggage hotline was a computer with some terrifyingly ordinary
   name (John? James?) who misunderstood half of what I said and only
   sounded like a computer pretending to be a human being. This computer
   thankfully did not introduce itself (do computers *really* need names?
   I mean really?). Now I'm in the US. For the last 7 months some part of
   my brain has lagged behind in a place where ordering dinner meant
   bargaining for it in a market while it was still alive...