Will

Our privacy or lack thereof is determined by the choices we make every day.

The devices we use, the apps we download, and the terms and conditions we agree to determine our exposure to the digital world and the utility we can derive from it. We have created Will, a fictional virtual assistant set 10 years in the future. This piece of design fiction is a logical extrapolation of the capabilities of current technologies and the context they might exist within. You get to choose your own path through the future. The decisions you make will determine your relative success or failure and help you understand the future privacy implications of your current decisions.

This study aims to illustrate the paradoxical conflict between our desire for increased utility through optimisation and increased autonomy through privacy. By exploring our interactive narrative and technology visualisation tool, you can situate yourself in a near future where decisions around privacy are not clear-cut. We will present the seductive nature of voluntary surveillance and the steep cost of mass adoption. We will ground the narrative in the emerging technologies that facilitate these future scenarios.