We Are The Data!
Midjourney: Curt Doty, with apologies to Keanu
In Johnny Mnemonic, Keanu Reeves plays a poor bastard with a data storage implant in his head, risking brain melt because he’s smuggling too many megabytes. That was 1995 portraying 2021, written by William Gibson in 1981. The future was wired, glitchy, and punk AF. Fast-forward to now, and guess what? You’re Johnny. I’m Johnny. We’re all Johnny.
Except we’re not being hunted down for carrying contraband gigabytes—we are the contraband.
In this retro-future reality that turned out to be our actual present, data isn’t smuggled. It’s siphoned. Seamlessly. Casually. Lovingly, even. Under the silky sheets of "Convenience." The UX whisperers and dopamine designers have lulled us with Face ID, Recommendo-Algorithms, and "Allow Location While Using App."
I Am. Therefore I’m Tracked.
Let’s be clear: data isn’t just your Social Security number. It’s your location, your sleep schedule, your heart rate. It’s what you almost bought, what you hate-scrolled at midnight, and the thing you mumbled into your phone while drunk. It’s your browser tab history and your “For You” feed. It’s what you might say, might want, might think. This is pre-crime with a side of capitalism.
We’re not in Orwell’s 1984—we’re in his Deleted Scenes, where the Thought Police outsourced their job to Big Tech.
Johnny Mnemonic nailed it: the movie predicted a world where information is currency, corporations have eclipsed nation-states (Hello Mountainhead), and people are reduced to data hosts in a never-ending game of hide-the-packet. But here’s the kicker: we’re not smuggling data. We’re surrendering it. Willingly. Joyfully. Through every ping, click, and wearable.
Enter the New Gods of Data: IO, Neuralink, and DOGE’s Panopticon
Jonny Ive’s new device from LoveFrom (IO) is sleek, sexy, and ominously vague. Designed with the hushed reverence of a Bond gadget and the Apple gloss of holy relics, IO promises connection. Interaction. Identity. What it doesn’t say out loud is what it costs. (Spoiler: it's you.)
Meanwhile, Musk’s Neuralink wants to put Siri in your skull. Because what’s better than surveillance? Embedded surveillance. But don’t worry, it’s for science. For “helping paraplegics.” For “connecting to your inner self.” (Also, probably to serve you an ad the moment you think about Cheez-Its.)
And while black-eyed Dogefather Elon distracts us with Mars memes and banana-brained billionaires, let’s talk about the real threat: one big data vault—your tweets, your threads, your real-time biometrics, all nestled into one giant, privately-owned AI-fed engine with government access. Welcome to Minority Report, minus the ethics.
“Convenience” Is a Trojan Horse with a Bluetooth Logo
Convenience is the soft lie we whisper to ourselves while the data vampire quietly drains us. Faster logins. Personalized playlists. Smooth hotel check-ins via retina scan. It's all so easy… until your face is the reason you can’t board your flight, or your Facebook history gets flagged at the border.
Yes, the U.S. government now scans your social media when you re-enter your own country. That’s not sci-fi. That’s Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Everyone's Yelling About Copyright
Ah yes, the Great AI Copyright Distraction. Sara Silverman and the gang are (rightfully) pissed that their works are being scraped to train GenAI. But here’s the truth bomb: Big Tech doesn’t really care about her book. What they want is you.
Your face. Your habits. Your patterns. Your future.
They want the predictive engine so honed it knows what you’ll dream about—and then sell you something for it before you wake up.
So yes, artists deserve attribution. Yes, we need ethical AI sourcing. But don’t get blinded by the legal sparring over paragraph six of a memoir. That’s noise.
The signal? Surveillance capitalism just went quantum.
The Countermove: Protect. Reject. Redirect.
Here’s your power move:
Don’t surrender. Default to denial. Question every checkbox.
Opt-out where you can. Use privacy-first tools like DuckDuckGo, and ProtonMail.
Demand ethical AI. They're out there—small, scrappy, principled teams building LLMs without scraping your soul.
Educate others. Host an AI salon. Ask hard questions. Share posts like this one.
Because once the IOs and Neuralinks plug in, once the databases consolidate, and once “thinking” is something tracked, tagged, and monetized—it’s game over for autonomy, free thought and privacy. And LinkedIn, cool it with the “Verified” ploy bullshit.
You are not just the user. You are the product. You are the pipeline. You are the data.
Protect it like your life depends on it.
Because in the end, it will. (Still thinking my own thoughts… for now)
Sources:
https://www.kqed.org/arts/13890789/all-the-things-1995s-johnny-mnemonic-got-right-about-life-in-2021
About the Author
Curt Doty, founder of CurtDoty.co, is an award winning creative director whose legacy lies in branding, product development, social strategy, integrated marketing, and User Experience Design. His work of entertainment branding includes Electronic Arts, EA Sports, ProSieben, SAT.1, WBTV Latin America, Discovery Health, ABC, CBS, A&E, StarTV, Fox, Kabel 1, and TV Guide Channel.
He has extensive experience on AI-driven platforms MidJourney, Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT, Perplexity, HeyGen, Descript and OpusClips. He also runs his AI consultancy RealmIQ and companion podcast RealmIQ: Sessions on YouTube and Spotify.
As a new writer, he released his first novella Griffin and the Dark Secret on Amazon under his imprint MediaSlam Press and is working on the second installment Griffin: Future Past.
He is a sought after public speaker having been featured at Streaming Media NYC, Digital Hollywood, Mobile Growth Association, Mobile Congress, App Growth Summit, Promax, CES, CTIA, NAB, NATPE, MMA Global, New Mexico Angels, Santa Fe Business Incubator, EntrepeneursRx, Davos Worldwide, PRSANM, Robert Half, and AI Impact. He has lectured at universities including Full Sail, SCAD, Art Center College of Design, CSUN and Chapman University.
He currently serves on the board of the Godfrey Reggio Foundation and is the AI Writer for Parlay Me.
