“Conversation” stands alone in its promise to dominate raw-material supply, and the rewards to the One Voice would be astronomical. Casual talk helps to blur the boundaries between “it”—the apparatus saturated with commercial agents—and us. In conversation we imagine friendship. The more we fancy the apparatus as our confidante, nanny, governess, and support system—a disembodied, pervasive “Mrs. Doubtfire” for each person—the more experience we allow it to render, and the richer its supply operations grow. Communication is the first human joy, and a conversational interface is prized for the frictionless ease in which a mere utterance can trigger action, especially market action: “Let there be light.” “Let there be new running shoes.” What could be dreamier than to speak and have it be so?

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 811