Vision of Her Past

I bought the Apple Vision Pro for my mom because she started forgetting things—names, birthdays, even how to make her famous apple pie. The doctors said it was early-stage dementia, not urgent, but irreversible. But what they didn’t know was that Mom had once been a concert pianist, a woman who memorized entire symphonies. I hoped the Vision Pro could help her remember. Instead, it started showing her things that never happened… or maybe always did.

Vision of Her Past

I bought the Apple Vision Pro for my mom because she started forgetting things—names, birthdays, even how to make her famous apple pie. The doctors said it was early-stage dementia, not urgent, but irreversible. But what they didn’t know was that Mom had once been a concert pianist, a woman who memorized entire symphonies. I hoped the Vision Pro could help her remember. Instead, it started showing her things that never happened… or maybe always did.

The first time Mom screamed at the Vision Pro, I thought it was broken.

She tore the headset off, gasping like she’d surfaced from drowning. Her hands trembled. 'Where is she?' she demanded. 'Who?' I asked. 'Clara,' she whispered. 'My Clara. She was just here. You took her away.'

I froze. Clara wasn’t in our family tree. Not until that night, when I dug through old photo albums and found a single faded picture—Mom, younger, holding a baby in a red blanket, labeled in shaky ink: With Clara, 3 months. No last name. No date. Nothing else.

I powered up the device’s history log. Restricted. Encrypted. 'For patient emotional safety,' the message read.

That’s when I realized: the Apple Vision Pro wasn’t helping her remember.

It was teaching her how to lie.