Google (company motto: "We know what you're doing, pal") has announced a new personal assistant. It's called "Assistant." It sits on your countertop, answers questions, takes commands. If you have a Google dongle on your TV (and you should, because it's fun to say "I have a Google dongle, " just to see who blushes), you can say, "Play Season 43 of 'Murder, She Wrote' on Netflix," and voilà.
Previously you had to use a remote, pushing buttons until your thumb was practically raw.
Lest you think I am some sour scold who thinks the world started to go downhill when the mechanical clatter of the telegraph key replaced the hoofbeats of the Pony Express, I already have robot assistants around the house. I use them every day. Amazon's Echo is a remarkable piece of tech — it's a simple black cylinder, like a Pringles can designed by Karl Lagerfeld. I say its name — Alexa! — and ask it for music, news, weather. Or an Uber. Or the answers to issues that gnaw at the soul at 3 a.m.
Alexa, what is the meaning of life?
"The answer is 42," she replied, referencing the popular book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." "But the question is more complicated." True.
I turned to Siri, the Apple smart assistant on my iPhone, and asked her the same question.
"I can't answer that right now," she said. "But give me some time to write a very long play in which nothing happens."
Ooh. Salty! I can imagine how it'll go with Google Assistant: