I’ve quickly grown accustomed to having instantaneous access to the entirety of human knowledge pretty much anywhere and at any time (otherwise known as googling from a smartphone). But you know what feature of the magical unfolding digital future really blows me away? The fact that, in my house, I can say “Alexa, play Led Zeppelin,” and start irritating my children within seconds.

Alexa is the pleasant personality baked into Amazon’s Echo Bluetooth speaker; she’s staring at me right now from the kitchen table, breathlessly...