Rick Jones switched on his holo-conference to speak to his girlfriend, Jane Simpson.

“One moment, please, we’re updating ...”

“Done.”

“Enjoy our newest AI update—ER (Emotional Response). Giving you much deeper insights into a conversation to build a greater rapport with others. Remember, microexpressions never lie!”

Jane sat right in front of Rick as if she were actually there.

“Rick, honey, are you upset?”

“No, not at all.” Rick shook his head.

“Yes, you are.” Jane frowned. “The ER never lies!”

“This is bullshit, Jane. We have zero sense of privacy now. How do we turn it off?”

“We can’t, Rick. We agreed upon the Code of Conference: Trust, Truth, and Integrity.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know about that ... I’ll be right back.”—Rick disconnected.

An advertisement popped up:

“Finding ER frustrating? Are you losing control over your relationships? Don’t worry. Use E-VPN (Emotional Virtual Private Network) to keep your true feelings to yourself!”

“For how much?” asked Rick.

“Only one single payment of 2500 cryptocredits.”

Rick paid for the package, launched the E-VPN client, and contacted Jane.

“Rick, darling, why do you look like a cat?”

“What? I’m not a cat!”

Rick hung up and searched for E-VPN’s holosite—but his query showed a recent article about fraudulent workarounds against ER.

“Those damn scammers!”