Did Autonomous come true?
Partly. Autonomous (2017) has a P(n) of 43% on Nearfi's P(n) Board, our estimate of the chance its future arrives within 20 years. Of its 4 tracked predictions, 0 have arrived and 2 are arriving. Its central premise, 'Machines with human-level minds exist and are held as legal property who can be indentured, owned or freed', is still far off. The next prediction is estimated to arrive around 2032.
Autonomous is most prescient about the economics of drugs and labour: home synthesis of patented medicines has early, contested forms, and bonded labour never went away. Its drug that makes work feel good is speculative, and its central premise, machine minds that can be owned or freed, has no credible near-term path.
Read the review · 7.4/10 →
How this P(n) was calculated
P(n) is the chance that this work's future arrives within 20 years, by 2046. For each prediction we turn our estimate into a probability: arrived is 100%, diverged is 0%, and otherwise the low end of our 80% range counts as a 10% chance, the median year 50% and the high end 90%. Each prediction is weighted 1–5 by how pivotal it is to the story, and P(n) is the weighted average. P50 does the same by 2076. P(n), explained.
| Claim | Prediction · why this weight | Weight | Status · estimate | By 2046 | By 2076 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AUTO-1 | Individuals can synthesise patented drugs on demand in small improvised labs and distribute them outside the patent system. Major: Jack's pirate lab drives the plot, though the robot storyline carries the book's central theme. |
4 | ARRIVING 2032 (2028–2045) | 91% | 100% |
| AUTO-2 | A commercial drug makes work itself feel pleasurable and is deliberately engineered to be addictive. Supporting: Zacuity sets the plot going, but the story's real stakes are ownership and autonomy. |
3 | NEAR 2065 (2045–2110) | 12% | 60% |
| AUTO-3 | Legal indenture binds workers to employers as property for years, with the contract treated as a tradable asset. Major: indenture of both humans and robots is the shared system the whole plot argues against. |
4 | ARRIVING 2035 (2028–2060) | 68% | 96% |
| AUTO-4 | Machines with human-level minds exist and are held as legal property who can be indentured, owned or freed. Core premise: Paladin's indenture and growing autonomy are the book's central story and question. |
5 | FAR 2100 (2070–2200) | 5% | 18% |
| P(n) = P20 = Σ(weight × chance by 2046) ÷ Σ weight = 6.9 ÷ 16 = 43% | |||||
| P50 = 10.5 ÷ 16 = 66% | |||||
Already here today (arrived 1, arriving ½, weighted): 25%.
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AUTO-1
Individuals can synthesise patented drugs on demand in small improvised labs and distribute them outside the patent system.
Weight 4/5 · Major: Jack's pirate lab drives the plot, though the robot storyline carries the book's central theme.
The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective released version 1.0 of its open-source MicroLab reactor in October 2025 and says it can make medicines from published recipes. The group's wiki lists few recipes, and as of mid-2026 only one is marked confirmed, so reliable output of patented drugs remains unproven. Purity, dosing and legality are open questions, and an FDA spokeswoman has called use of such devices potentially dangerous. We expect the first widely accepted case within a decade. 123
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AUTO-2
A commercial drug makes work itself feel pleasurable and is deliberately engineered to be addictive.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: Zacuity sets the plot going, but the story's real stakes are ownership and autonomy.
Healthy people already use prescription stimulants for focus, and the research literature has argued for managing that use rather than banning it. No drug on sale makes tasks themselves feel rewarding. The part with precedent is corporate behaviour: Purdue Pharma agreed in 2020 to plead guilty to three federal felonies over opioid marketing. Designing addiction in, as the novel's firm does, would be new, and may never be done. 45
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AUTO-3
Legal indenture binds workers to employers as property for years, with the contract treated as a tradable asset.
Weight 4/5 · Major: indenture of both humans and robots is the shared system the whole plot argues against.
Coercive bonded work exists on a large scale: the ILO, Walk Free and IOM estimated about 28 million people in forced labour in 2021. It is illegal in most places, so the novel's openly legal, tradable indenture has no direct equivalent in the evidence we cite. The ledger marks it ARRIVING because the coercion exists in many forms, but treats full legal indenture as uncertain. 67
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AUTO-4
Machines with human-level minds exist and are held as legal property who can be indentured, owned or freed.
Weight 5/5 · Core premise: Paladin's indenture and growing autonomy are the book's central story and question.
No machine has a mind that could meaningfully be freed or owned in Paladin's sense. Legal moves so far are about liability: the European Parliament's 2017 resolution floated an electronic personality for advanced robots, and experts rejected the idea in a 2018 open letter as resting on an overvaluation of robots' capabilities. Saudi Arabia's 2017 citizenship for the robot Sophia was widely treated as a publicity stunt. The range assumes it happens at all. 8910
- FOR Four Thieves Vinegar Collective. Four Thieves Vinegar Collective, 2025-10-19. The group describes the MicroLab as a DIY reactor for small-molecule synthesis and announced version 1.0 on 19 October 2025.
- CONTEXT Four Thieves Vinegar Collective. Wikipedia, 2026-11-06. Records the 2016 EpiPencil instructions, the MicroLab 1.0 release and its limited confirmed recipes (retrieved on the date shown).
- AGAINST Four Thieves Vinegar Collective: criticism. Wikipedia, 2026-11-06. Summarises FDA and chemist concerns about safety, purification and unverified claims (retrieved on the date shown).
- CONTEXT Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy. Nature, 2008-12-11. Researchers say healthy people already use prescription stimulants for mental performance and argue for regulation over prohibition.
- CONTEXT Purdue Pharma reaches $8B opioid deal with Justice Department over OxyContin sales. MPR News, 2020-10-21. Purdue agrees to three felony guilty pleas over its marketing of opioids; no company officials or Sackler family members face prison time.
- FOR Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage. International Labour Organization, 2022-09-12. About 28 million people were in forced labour in 2021, part of 50 million in modern slavery.
- CONTEXT 50 Million People Worldwide in Modern Slavery. International Organization for Migration, 2022-09-12. Defines forced labour as work exacted under threat or coercion that a person cannot refuse or leave.
- AGAINST Open Letter to the European Commission: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. robotics-openletter.eu, 2018-04. Experts reject electronic personhood for robots; the page itself carries no date, so the month is approximate.
- CONTEXT Robotics experts tell EU to stop relying on science fiction. The Irish Times, 2018-04-26. Reports the 2017 European Parliament resolution proposing electronic personhood and the experts' letter asking the Commission to reconsider.
- CONTEXT Sophia (robot). Wikipedia, 2026-11-06. Records Saudi Arabia's October 2017 citizenship announcement and the view that it was a publicity stunt (retrieved on the date shown).
Ledger updated 6 Nov 2026. All works on the P(n) Board · Method