In September, I was waiting to cross the Embarcadero in San Francisco. A woman standing nearby asked me, “Is that the wheelchair that can climb stairs?” I shook my head. (I hadn’t gotten this one before, so I didn’t have one of my joking comebacks ready.) She informed me, “The same company that makes that chair also makes ones that can climb stairs.”
Well. That would be impressive, considering the company that makes my chair cannot even keep the correct time on the joystick display.
Stair-climbing wheelchairs, exoskeletons, personal assistant robots, AI, CRISPR, and brain–machine interfaces are all called innovations instead of novelties. I call them shiny objects, and most of them will hurt me more in their mainstream mystique than they will ever help me.