Assisted, But Not Assistive

The other day I rode in my friend’s self-driving Tesla and was surprisingly impressed. Because he has some impaired side vision, I realized the car is, in a way, an assisted device. It gives him more time, more confidence, and gives his wife more confidence in his driving. But it doesn’t look remotely like an assistive device. That got me thinking: maybe pickleball is an assisted sport. An e-bike is an assisted bicycle. A robot vacuum is an assisted housekeeper. Voice-to-text is an assisted secretary. And perhaps that’s the trick: the best assistance is the kind that doesn’t make you feel assisted.