We are the narrative of our own memories and others’ memories of us. This is how our identity is formed in a chronological context.
But today we know that memory is neither true, objective nor complete. We leave traces and archive them. I see this as an existential doubt: who am I if I can’t trust my memory? If I leave no traces, did I ever exist?
In the digital age, cloud archives are our memory. We leave behind vast amounts of footprints on the internet, which are tracked down and analyzed by artificial intelligence. They find everything and forget nothing. They seem to know us better than we know ourselves. Can they tell us who we are?
Even today, one technological advance follows the next, and it is becoming apparent that weighing up what is technically feasible and what is ethically acceptable will be a central task for our society. In the end, perhaps only one question will be important: Who do we want to be?
