Schmidt was, in fact, merely paraphrasing computer scientist Mark Weiser’s seminal 1991 article, “The Computer for the 21st Century,” which has framed Silicon Valley’s technology objectives for nearly three decades. Weiser introduced what he called “ubiquitous computing” with two legendary sentences: “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” He described a new way of thinking “that allows the computers themselves to vanish into the background.… Machines that fit the human environment instead of forcing humans to enter theirs will make using a computer as refreshing as taking a walk in the woods.”

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 618