The Last Mile: Where Artificial Intelligence Meets Reality

Trying to separate information technology from the way it is used by people is like trying to separate a breath from the lungs that took it. We are inextricably bound to technology, and it shapes us as much as we shape it. This idea that humans and machines together constitute a larger sociotechnical system is foundational to our understanding of the modern world [1]. The sociotechnical lessons that the past hold for emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) should come as no surprise [2]. Amongst these old lessons is the maxim that the application of technology should be shaped by the problem at hand, and not the technology [3].