Whose self does the self-flushing toilet flush?

The public restroom, never a pleasant place, has in recent years become a dystopia. It presents us with a preview, in microcosm, of our automated future. Motion detectors and other sensors register our presence, read our intentions, and, on our behalf, turn on the lights, flush the toilets, open the taps, squirt out the liquid soap, and dispense towelettes for drying. There is a weird tension between the primitiveness of the bodily functions being executed in the contemporary restroom and the...