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In theory we will delegate this to agents, but really companies can already do that (plenty of software does upgrade itself in backgroud (some doesn’t because the user may want to peg an older version).

But really that cacophony of upgrades etc isn’t about user control, but just companies reminding you they exist. It’s spam, and like spam fighting, agents will not be able to handle it adequately.

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Really, upgrading in the background is not calm technology to me: Windows Upgrades almost daily and my PC slows down, Firefox upgrades in the background and my tabs become unresponsive daily. I prefer the apt-Linux approach, even Ansible, or chocolatey. Anyway, I am not surprised that there are different definitions of what calm means (no offense!).

I believe there are good ways and bad ways to the background updates.

macOS and iOS doing updates when you are not looking is good because they store your app state most of the time.

Some macOS programs' "We have downloaded the update, it'll update silently when you exit" is also nice and kind way of doing it.

Firefox recently remedied its "We updated in the background but broke the runtime" problem for some months now on Linux and macOS, from which I observe.

However nudging, aggressive updates, forcing user to stop or take breaks are not calm technology. I accept that wholeheartedly.

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