We generalize here the concept of "tool reversibility" from Couldry and Hepp, Mediated Construction, 132. "Tool reversibility" was already anticipated in nineteenth-century workers' analysis of the factory as making the craftsman into "an animated tool of the management" (cited in Braverman, Labor, 94). In a broad way, today's critique of tool reversal echoes Illich's critique of modern tools (Tools, 34–37) and Marx's account of humankind's alienation from their productive lives under capitalism (Manuscripts, 112–13). But there is something distinctly shocking about contemporary smart tools' direct use of their users.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 761