1906
Voice Commands
Before we could use our voices to tell our cars what to do, early automobile owners used their to tell their “chauffeurs” what to do — a term that comes from the French for “stoker” because the earlier autos were steam-powered and required the driver to stoke the engine.
A 1906 New York Times article lamented that chauffeurs were a problem for “automobilists” because “young men with no particular ability” who had been earning $10 to $12 a week were “suddenly elevated” to salaried chauffeur positions starting at $25 a week.