Let me ask you this, did the wheels of the bicycle or subsequent car 'dehumanize' people?
You are trying to smear me by suggesting that because I criticize one technology I must be a luddite who is against all technology. This is very childish logic.
What are you talking about? I am simply drawing a parallel, no need to go all ad hominem conspiracy theory.
To suggest that anything is 'always the result' of anything is dogmatic and reveals a kind of pseudo-religious rather than rational attitude you seem to have. Also I explicitly mentioned human decision making not human labour. I have no problem automating human labour. Also what really scares me is not firing workers, its keeping them on, but chipped and tracked and with no scope for them to use their own initiative, creativity or even intelligence as every single part of their day with be monitored and prescribed in the name of efficiency.
I always wonder why people have this idea in their head that the world is always out to 'get them', chip them, trace them and then kill their spirits. Sorry I don't buy this narrative at all. Are there potentials for abuse as we become ever more reliant on technology? Of course, we have a plethora of examples to draw from. Are these organized efforts dehumanize us? No.
This is emphatically not an example of a fridge which is smarter than me. It is an example of a fridge which thinks it is smarter than me but in actual practical use is definitely not, which is why people don't choose to buy this kind of thing, which has actually been technologically possible for a long time. People act like the internet of things is a new idea, but its as old as the internet itself. Many of these IoT things have been possible for a long time and do not require cutting edge technology, but people are already choosing not to buy them.
It has not been technologically possible for a long time. A lot of hardware and software is needed for this to become a seamless reality. Just because something was possible to prototype 10 years ago, does NOT mean it was ready for market. Bell Telephone essentially invented Skype in the 60s, but it was not possible to get mass adoption in the technological ecosystem of the time. Similarly the smartphone existed in the early 90s, but it was not suited for the market landscape of that era. Now with the new hardware sensors, acutators and software APIs, IoT is becoming feasible, which is why we are seeing people starting to adopt it. And this is why IOTA exists, it's another one of those bricks needed to make it a reality.
I am not sure you actually know what IoT is. Robotic vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers are not IoT devices. They are self-contained robotic devices which need little or no connection with the outside world at all to operate. Yes you can add a connection to your smartphone to switch them on and off, but once again this is hardly cutting edge - its a fancy switch. I do see some growth in 'smart home' technologies but mostly I see it as just what you say there - people using their phone as a remote control. Nothing revolutionary, and not really machine to machine communication which is what IoT really is, just a fancy switch.
Yes, they are. These robots already communicate with their environment. And again: we're just at the beginning of this. It seems you believe that technological progression happens overnight. The smartphone was revolutionary, but it didn't happen overnight, in fact it was over a decade in development and had numerous iterative steps it needed to take before it had great impact. So just adopt some patience:)