Here are the sorts of things that might happen when there’s a chip in everything, and all the things we own can talk to each other.
Find Me
You’ll never have to hunt for a lost item of clothing or a piece of paper again. The annoying questions that you used to ask your parents / housemates / spouse will be addressed to the AI that runs your house instead:
“Where’s my orange running shirt?”
Will be answered with something like:
“It’s in your clothes cupboard, but on the wrong shelf, under the green towels**.”
or
“It’s in the washing machine finishing the rinse cycle, and can be dry in 15 minutes.”
or
“I last saw it in your gym bag last Thursday… checking your locker at the gym now… I’m sorry to tell you that your orange shirt is lost***. Sending out a Lost and Found notice to your contact list now… It appears that your brother has ‘borrowed’ the shirt again. His AI is arranging for it to be returned later today.”****
Implications
Who might this be good news for? School children? The Elderly? You?
How could it change the work that you do?
How could this go wrong, and what could you do about it?
** Of course, it’s likely that you’ll have a service that will always put your clothes back in the right places.
*** And it’s unlikely that you’ll leave a shirt behind at the gym – your bag will see that it’s been left behind, and ask you if this is deliberate before you leave.
**** Assuming that your brother doesn’t actually want to steal your shirt, in which case his AI might deny knowledge, while arranging to remove the incriminating chip…