Did Feed come true?
Partly. Feed (2002) has a P(n) of 58% on Nearfi's P(n) Board, our estimate of the chance its future arrives within 20 years. Of its 4 tracked predictions, 2 have arrived and 0 are arriving. Its central premise, 'Most people carry a brain implant that connects them directly to the internet, fitted in infancy', is expected within 50 years. The next prediction is estimated to arrive around 2065.
Feed's hardware is still clinical, but its economics have arrived: companies profile each person's behaviour to target advertising, now inside AI conversations, and implant makers have already walked away from users. Its Moon holiday for ordinary teenagers is the furthest-off part.
Read the review · 8.0/10 →
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FEED-1 | Most people carry a brain implant that connects them directly to the internet, fitted in infancy. Core premise: the feed is the novel's central device and every plot event runs through it. |
5 | NEAR 2065 (2045–2100) | 12% | 63% |
| FEED-2 | Corporations build a detailed profile of each person from their behaviour and use it to target advertising at them continuously. Major: the feed exists to profile and sell, which drives Titus, Violet's resistance and the ending. |
4 | ARRIVED arrived 2012 | 100% | 100% |
| FEED-3 | When a person's neural implant fails, its maker declines to repair or support it, leaving the user without recourse. Major: Violet's failing feed and FeedTech's refusal drive the second half and the ending. |
4 | ARRIVED arrived 2020 | 100% | 100% |
| FEED-4 | Ordinary teenagers take holiday trips to the Moon. Texture: the Moon trip opens the book and sets up the hack, but it is a backdrop for the story. |
2 | FAR 2110 (2075–2200) | 4% | 11% |
| P(n) = P20 = Σ(weight × chance by 2046) ÷ Σ weight = 8.7 ÷ 15 = 58% | |||||
| P50 = 11.4 ÷ 15 = 76% | |||||
Already here today (arrived 1, arriving ½, weighted): 53%.
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FEED-1
Most people carry a brain implant that connects them directly to the internet, fitted in infancy.
Weight 5/5 · Core premise: the feed is the novel's central device and every plot event runs through it.
Brain-computer interfaces now exist, but only as clinical devices. Neuralink had 21 trial participants in January 2026, and a 2025 Stanford study decoded imagined speech from four people paralysed by ALS or stroke. None is a consumer product, none is fitted to healthy children, and none gives a general connection to the internet. The bottlenecks are surgical risk, regulation and the lack of any reason for a healthy person to accept brain surgery. The range assumes a safer, less invasive route eventually appears, and it may not. 12
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FEED-2
Corporations build a detailed profile of each person from their behaviour and use it to target advertising at them continuously.
Weight 4/5 · Major: the feed exists to profile and sell, which drives Titus, Violet's resistance and the ending.
A 2024 US Federal Trade Commission staff report found that nine large social media and streaming companies engaged in vast surveillance of users in order to sell targeted advertising. In 2026 the same model reached AI chatbots, with ads matched to the current conversation. The book's version delivers advertising straight into the mind, even in sleep, and that has not happened. The profiling and targeting have. The arrival year is a judgement, since behavioural targeting became mainstream over several years. 345
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FEED-3
When a person's neural implant fails, its maker declines to repair or support it, leaving the user without recourse.
Weight 4/5 · Major: Violet's failing feed and FeedTech's refusal drive the second half and the ending.
Second Sight, maker of the Argus II retinal implant, laid off most of its staff and announced its intention to wind down in March 2020. Support lapsed for more than 350 users, and the devices can no longer be repaired or replaced. The book's refusal is different, because FeedTech declines over Violet's customer profile and not over bankruptcy. Both leave a person dependent on a company that has stopped answering. A retinal implant is also not a brain implant, so the match is close but not exact. 67
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FEED-4
Ordinary teenagers take holiday trips to the Moon.
Weight 2/5 · Texture: the Moon trip opens the book and sets up the hack, but it is a backdrop for the story.
No civilian has gone to the Moon in the modern era. The private Starship flight around the Moon was cancelled in 2024, and Artemis II in April 2026 was a ten-day government flyby with no landing or orbit. Mass lunar tourism would need cheap, reliable transport and habitats that do not exist. We see no credible path to ordinary teenagers going within 50 years. 89
- FOR Elon Musk's Neuralink says it has 21 participants enrolled in trials. Reuters, via The Star (Malaysia), 2026-01-29. Up from 12 in September 2025. The implant is aimed at conditions such as spinal cord injury, and trials began in 2024 after an earlier FDA rejection.
- CONTEXT Scientists decode inner speech from brain activity with high accuracy. News-Medical, reporting a study in Cell, 2025-08-14. Implants in four paralysed people decoded imagined sentences with up to 74% accuracy, with a password that stops decoding until the user unlocks it. The patients are clinical, not consumers.
- FOR FTC Staff Report Finds Large Social Media and Video Streaming Companies Have Engaged in Vast Surveillance of Users with Lax Privacy Controls and Inadequate Safeguards for Kids and Teens. US Federal Trade Commission, 2024-09-19. Data collected from users and non-users, bought from brokers and kept indefinitely, mainly to support targeted advertising.
- FOR OpenAI finally pulls trigger on ChatGPT ads after monthslong delay. PPC Land, 2026-01-16. Ads below ChatGPT answers, matched to the current conversation. OpenAI says conversations stay private from advertisers and ads avoid health, mental health and politics.
- CONTEXT OpenAI expands ChatGPT ads to 26 more countries in bid to boost revenue. Reuters, via The Star (Malaysia), 2026-10-21. Ads on Free and Go plans only, now in 89 countries; Plus, Pro and Enterprise stay ad-free.
- FOR Their Bionic Eyes Are Now Obsolete and Unsupported. IEEE Spectrum, 2022-02-15. Second Sight wound down in 2020. One user's implant failed in 2013 and was never repaired, and another could not get device information for an MRI.
- CONTEXT Elon Musk's Neuralink says it has 21 participants enrolled in trials. Reuters, via The Star (Malaysia), 2026-01-29. Neuralink says it has had no serious device-related adverse events and is working with regulators and hospital sites. No such abandonment has been reported for it.
- AGAINST Japanese billionaire pulls plug on private dearMoon lunar Starship mission. TechCrunch, 2024-06-03. Yusaku Maezawa cancelled his private lunar flight, citing uncertainty about when Starship would be ready.
- CONTEXT Artemis II returns from moon with splashdown to close out record-breaking lunar voyage. KSL, 2026-04-10. Four professional astronauts flew past the Moon, without landing or orbiting, and set a distance record.
Ledger updated 6 Nov 2026. All works on the P(n) Board · Method