Did Made for Love come true?

1. MFL-1

   A brain implant transmits a person's location, what they see and their emotional state to another person, who can monitor them in real time.

   NEARCore premiseEst. 2065 · range 2045–2100+Confidence: low

   2000202520502070

   Weight 5/5 · Core premise: Byron's chip, and Hazel's flight from it, is what the series is about.

   Implants can now read narrow signals in single patients: mood-state changes in epilepsy patients, attempted and some inner speech in people with paralysis. Location is trivial and needs no implant. Reading what a person sees or feels in general, from a device that works outside a clinic and without training, is not shown anywhere. Neuralink's first patient lost most of the device's threads from his brain, which shows how fragile even the basic hardware still is. The range is wide because the route is unclear and may never be taken. 123

2. MFL-2

   A spouse or partner can covertly track another person's location and activity through technology the person has not agreed to.

   ARRIVEDMajorArrived 2019Confidence: high

   2000202520502070

   Weight 4/5 · Major: Byron's surveillance of Hazel drives her escape and the whole central conflict.

   Covert monitoring apps and Bluetooth trackers are sold and used for exactly this. In October 2019 the US Federal Trade Commission brought its first case against developers of apps designed to run surreptitiously on another person's phone. Bluetooth tags such as AirTags were widely linked to stalking from 2021, and in May 2024 Apple and Google shipped alerts for unknown trackers. The year given is the date of the first regulatory case; the practice is older. Defences are improving but incomplete. The show's version needs no phone, but the behaviour is the same. 456

3. MFL-3

   Two people's minds are linked directly through brain chips, so that thoughts and feelings are shared between them.

   FARMajorEst. 2100 · range 2070–2200+Confidence: low

   2000202520502070

   Weight 4/5 · Major: the planned merging of minds is what Byron wants and what Hazel flees.

   Brain-to-brain links exist as laboratory demonstrations. A 2013 study linked two rats, and a 2019 experiment let three people pass yes-or-no decisions to one another, using EEG and magnetic stimulation. These carry one bit at a time, at modest accuracy. Even the best published speech decoder, for one person with paralysis, still had a 25 per cent word error rate. A link that shares meaning, memory or feeling between two healthy adults has no known mechanism, and this may never be built. 789

4. MFL-4

   Lifelike dolls serve as people's romantic or domestic companions, with the ability to hold a conversation.

   ARRIVINGTextureEst. 2028 · range 2027–2035Confidence: medium

   2000202520502070

   Weight 2/5 · Texture: Herb's doll Diane is a subplot and a source of comedy, not the main story.

   Lifelike dolls have been sold for decades, and AI-driven talking versions have been shown. Realbotix, the owner of the RealDoll maker, is taking reservations for Series 1 humanoid robots with AI personas, with deliveries expected from the second half of 2027 and not guaranteed. The dolls and the chatbots both exist already, so the claim is about how well they are joined and how widely they sell, which is why the status is ARRIVING. 1011

1. FOR Mood variations decoded from multi-site intracranial human brain activity. Nature Biotechnology, 2018-09-10. Mood state decoded from electrodes implanted in seven epilepsy patients, offered as initial evidence that it is feasible.
2. FOR New brain implant can decode a person's 'inner monologue'. Live Science, 2025-08-19. A brain-computer interface decodes inner speech in people with paralysis, a narrow, trained use that shows implants reading private mental content.
3. AGAINST FDA allows Neuralink to implant 2nd patient with brain chip. FOX 7 Austin, 2024-05-21. Neuralink adjusted its design after the first patient's implant threads retracted, limiting performance; the device is still a medical trial product.
4. FOR FTC Brings First Case Against Developers of "Stalking" Apps. US Federal Trade Commission, 2019-10-22. Settlement with Retina-X Studios over apps that monitored devices without the user's knowledge.
5. FOR Apple and Google agree on standard to alert people when unknown Bluetooth devices may be tracking them. TechCrunch, 2024-05-13. The OS-level alerts follow many cases of Bluetooth trackers such as AirTags being used to stalk people.
6. AGAINST Apple and Google try anti-stalking spec for Bluetooth tags. The Register, 2023-05-02. Notes that the spec covers only some vendors and does not close every route to misuse, so safeguards are partial.
7. FOR BrainNet: A Multi-Person Brain-to-Brain Interface for Direct Collaboration Between Brains. Scientific Reports, 2019-04-16. Three people collaborate via direct brain-to-brain communication, with 81.25% average accuracy on a binary decision in a Tetris-like game.
8. CONTEXT A Brain-to-Brain Interface for Real-Time Sharing of Sensorimotor Information. Scientific Reports, 2013-02-28. Two rats are linked so the decoder animal learns from the encoder animal's cortical activity.
9. AGAINST A high-performance neuroprosthesis for speech decoding and avatar control. Nature, 2023-08-23. The leading speech decoder, in one participant, reached a median 78 words a minute with a median 25% word error rate, far from sharing meaning.
10. FOR Realbotix: Series 1 humanoid robots. Realbotix, 2026-11-06. Sells humanoid robots with faces, voices and personalities, positioned for companionship, with first deliveries expected in the second half of 2027.
11. CONTEXT RealDoll. Wikipedia, 2026-11-06. The current RealDoll was introduced in 1996 by Abyss Creations, now a subsidiary of Realbotix.

Ledger updated 6 Nov 2026. All works on the P(n) Board · Method