cyberpunk
Latest stories covering cyberpunk, with summaries and links to related coverage.
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New Worlds: We are living in the future of J.G. Ballard or William Gibson
opinion
9 min read
The writer characterizes everyday life in 2026 as a normalized version of cyberpunk, built from news reports, advertisements and personal encounters involving artificial intelligence, robotics, surveillance and extreme commercial ventures. Examples include Get A Drip’s IV-vitamin clinic in London’s Westfield shopping centre, a delivery robot navigating Bristol’s Gloucester Road, robots dancing at Seoul’s Galaxy Robot Park, and police drones used to identify alleged dangerous driving in Poole. The cited reports describe Meta code that Wired said added a face-recognition feature, internally called NameTag, to Meta’s AI app for use with smart glasses; banks warning that criminals use AI voice imitation for fraud; and suspicion that neo-soul performer Sienna Rose’s music is AI-generated despite 2.6 million monthly Spotify listeners. Other examples include AI-generated images of Russian soldiers circulating online, virtual “parents” offering reassurance to users in China, and workers sending AI bots to meetings. The writer argues that these developments feel less like science fiction because they appear amid ordinary routines and receive little sustained public reaction. The source also links technological normalization to climate disruption, citing wildfires affecting English Midlands housing estates and heat-related rail-track buckling, while questioning whether pausing to notice rapid change alters society’s ability to adapt to it.