Cyberpunk portrays a high-tech future in which advanced technology exists alongside social inequality, crime, and the loss of personal freedom. Artificial intelligence, cybernetic implants, virtual spaces, megacorporations, and total digitalization become part of everyday life.
Unlike broader science fiction, cyberpunk focuses less on technology itself than on its impact on people and society. Its defining formula is high tech, low life: extraordinary technological possibilities in a world that has not become a better place.