The most insightful vision of the future at CES came from HBO's 'Westworld'
As I walked into the line, a woman I did not recognize gave me a big hug, saying how nice it was to finally see me and asking how my dog and boyfriend were doing (by name). I couldn't tell if I'd either forgotten if we'd met before, or if the game had already begun.
Quickly, it became clear that it was the latter.
Throughout the night, random folks approached me and my coworkers to discuss personal details about our lives, our work, the articles we'd written, changes to our hair color, and — in one case — uncertainty about whether or not a move out of their current city was warranted. To be clear, there were some misses in what I later learned was a 600 page, personally tailored script for the evening. We noticed that those of us with little online presence were harder for them to pin down. Other times, details got switched around (like my boyfriend and dog's names.)
But it was enough. We got the game. Our over-sharing digital selves were being thrown back in our faces, as we were forced to dine with our choice to give up every ounce of our internet privacy.