Jessica Love wonders how changing technology will affect language, especially between humans and machines:
[C]onsider an interaction between Kevin and a thermostat. In this event—a temperature-adjusting event—Kevin is very much a Proto-agent, and the thermostat a Proto-patient. We would probably describe this scenario using a sentence like Kevin adjusted the thermostat.
But what if the thermostat in question is a very smart thermostat—a thermostat that anticipates Kevin’s needs based on past heating and air conditioning usage, one that perhaps even detects that he is preparing for bed early, or that company has arrived, and switches temperatures accordingly? Now it is the thermostat that, when it comes to adjusting the temperature, seems to play a more agentive role. We might describe this scenario as The thermostat adjusted or even The thermostat accommodated Kevin.
With intelligence distributed more widely among the objects that surround us, in other words, our own role as an agent—speaking linguistically and, I suppose, non-linguistically—might shift as well.
The Dish 