Receive email, render page with the email and a reply section and a unique ID, print it out physically

Human picks up all the sheets out of the printer, writes out replies with pen

Human puts the stack of answered email sheets in a multi-page scanner

Scanner physically scans them, agent transcribes them and matches them back to the incoming emails via the unique ID on each sheet, sends replies

You could adjust this flow for anything where human input is just one part of a larger sequence: just add print -> write -> scan into your flow where you'd normally have a human type. It's kind of a rebirth of faxing

▲

smj-edison 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I will say scanners are somewhat unergonomic, but if you had a high enough definition camera, you could photograph the document in its "natural environment". Granted, it's harder to get an evenly lit picture that way, but I think it's a nicer interface.

	▲	charlieboardman 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Fair enough, I actually have been thinking about this topic lately since I have to generate and print and fill out and sign a lot of paper vouchers in my job. I would prefer having a dedicated scanner to just throw them into in a stack with a server/cron job/bash script always watching for new incoming documents rather than a more complex camera setup but yeah something like a camera over your shoulder on your desk could pick up documents too

▲

EvanAnderson an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I always wished I could throw my Pocketmod[0] in the scanner at the end of the day and have a nice new one with any notes I wanted to carry over to the next day freshly printed and waiting in the morning.

[0] https://pocketmod.com/