CES 2026 offered a lonely vision of the future

LG opened CES 2026 by outlining its vision to reduce the physical effort and mental burden of life. Buy enough of the devices it’s presently working on and you’ll exist in an environment of “ambient care,” coddled by the machinery in your home. It sounds positively utopian: When the sensors in your bed know you’ve not slept well and are getting a cold, a robot will wake you with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. When you’re in a rush to get to work, the robot will make you a sandwich for you to eat on the go, sparing you the effort of making it yourself. The more I roamed the halls of the show after that, the more I couldn’t help feeling uneasy about what...