The martial arts actor Jet Li turned down a role in the Matrix and has been invisible on our screens because he does not want his fighting moves 3D-captured and owned by someone else. Soon everyone will be wearing 3D-capable cameras to support augmented reality (often referred to as mixed reality) applications. Everyone will have to deal with the sorts of digital-capture issues across every part of our life that Jet Li avoided in key roles and musicians have struggled to deal with since Napster. AR means anyone can rip, mix and burn reality itself.

Tim Cook has warned the industry about "the data industrial complex" and advocated for privacy as a human right. It doesn't take too much thinking about where some parts of the tech industry are headed to see AR ushering in a dystopian future where we are bombarded with unwelcome visual distractions, and our every eye movement and emotional reaction is tracked for ad targeting. But as Tim Cook also said, "it doesn't have to be creepy." The industry has made data-capture mistakes while building today's tech platforms, and it shouldn't repeat them.