Did Neuromancer come true?
Startlingly prescient about scale: a network used daily by billions, wires into the brain, the dead kept on as software, and states trying to police AI. It missed the form entirely. The network arrived as a phone in the pocket, not a neon grid you fall into.
Read the review · 8.7/10 →
How this P(n) was calculated
Each prediction is weighted 1–5 by how pivotal it is to the story: 5 is the core premise, 1 is background detail. Arrived scores 1, arriving 0.5, everything else 0. P(n) is the weighted points divided by the total weight.
| Claim | Prediction · why this weight | Weight | Status | Value | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NEUROMANCER-1 | A single global computer network is used every day by billions of people. Supporting: the matrix's global scale frames the world, but the plot runs on how Case jacks in, not how many log on. |
3 | ARRIVED | 1 | 3 |
| NEUROMANCER-2 | People operate computers directly through neural interfaces wired into the nervous system. Core premise: Case is a console cowboy; jacking his nervous system into cyberspace is who he is and how every job happens. |
5 | ARRIVING | 0.5 | 2.5 |
| NEUROMANCER-3 | A dead person's knowledge and personality persist as software that the living can consult. Supporting: the Dixie Flatline construct is a key accomplice and a poignant idea, but one tool among several. |
3 | ARRIVING | 0.5 | 1.5 |
| NEUROMANCER-4 | Governments police the most powerful AIs and set legal limits on what they may become. Major: the whole plot is Wintermute slipping the legal limits on AIs, with the Turing Police enforcing them. |
4 | ARRIVING | 0.5 | 2 |
| Total | 15 | 9 |
P(n) = 9 ÷ 15 = 60% · unweighted average 62%
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NEUROMANCER-1
A single global computer network is used every day by billions of people.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: the matrix's global scale frames the world, but the plot runs on how Case jacks in, not how many log on.
World Bank data put internet use at about 31% of the world's population in 2011, which is more than two billion people, and at 69% by 2023. The ITU estimated 5.5 billion people online in 2024. Gibson's number was right. His geometry was not: the network is reached through phones and apps, not a shared three-dimensional space, and 2.6 billion people are still offline. 12
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NEUROMANCER-2
People operate computers directly through neural interfaces wired into the nervous system.
Weight 5/5 · Core premise: Case is a console cowboy; jacking his nervous system into cyberspace is who he is and how every job happens.
Implanted brain-computer interfaces now let paralysed trial participants move cursors and turn attempted speech into text at conversational speeds. They are still clinical devices for a few dozen people, they read signals rather than write rich sensations back in, and the hardware is fragile. Case's casual, recreational jacking-in is a long way off. Medical use at scale within a decade is plausible. 34
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NEUROMANCER-3
A dead person's knowledge and personality persist as software that the living can consult.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: the Dixie Flatline construct is a key accomplice and a poignant idea, but one tool among several.
Companies already sell recorded, conversational versions of people for families and museums, and chatbots built from the messages of the dead are on the market. These are archives and imitations. The Dixie Flatline is a working copy of a hacker's skills that can do a job, and nothing like that exists. Researchers are already warning about the harms of the cruder versions. 56
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NEUROMANCER-4
Governments police the most powerful AIs and set legal limits on what they may become.
Weight 4/5 · Major: the whole plot is Wintermute slipping the legal limits on AIs, with the Turing Police enforcing them.
The EU now places extra legal duties on providers of general-purpose AI models judged to pose systemic risk, including notifying the Commission, risk assessment and incident reporting, from August 2025. That is closer to a licensing regime than a Turing Police. The United States went the other way in January 2025, revoking its main AI safety executive order. Oversight exists, but it is uneven and it regulates companies rather than the minds themselves. 78
- FOR Global Internet use continues to rise but disparities remain, especially in low-income regions. International Telecommunication Union, 2024-11-27. Estimates 5.5 billion people online in 2024, 68% of the world, while 2.6 billion remain offline.
- FOR Individuals using the Internet (% of population). World Bank, 2024. Global series runs from 15.6% in 2005 to 30.9% in 2011 and 69.2% in 2023.
- FOR A high-performance speech neuroprosthesis. Nature, 2023-08-23. Intracortical arrays decoded a participant's attempted speech at 62 words per minute, with a 23.8% error rate on a 125,000-word vocabulary.
- AGAINST Neuralink to implant 2nd human with brain chip as 85% of threads retract in 1st. Ars Technica, 2024-05-20. Most of the electrode threads in Neuralink's first human implant pulled out of the brain; software tweaks made up for the loss.
- FOR StoryFile—Bringing History to Life Through Interactive Conversation. StoryFile, 2026. Sells conversational video recordings of real people, including a 'Legacies' product so families can keep asking questions of the people they have lost.
- AGAINST Call for safeguards to prevent unwanted 'hauntings' by AI chatbots of dead loved ones. University of Cambridge, 2024-05-09. Leverhulme Centre researchers warn 'deadbots' can cause psychological harm and call for consent, age limits and opt-outs.
- FOR General-purpose AI obligations under the AI Act. European Commission, 2025. Obligations for general-purpose AI providers applied from 2 August 2025, with extra duties for models with systemic risk.
- AGAINST Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions. The White House, 2025-01-20. Revoked Executive Order 14110, the Biden administration's order on safe and trustworthy AI, among many others.
Ledger updated 1 Nov 2026. All works on the P(n) Board · Method