Did The Island come true?
Partly. The Island (2005) has a P(n) of 66% 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 1 are arriving. Its central premise, 'Fully grown human clones are produced in secret and kept as a supply of organs and pregnancies for wealthy clients', is still far off. The next prediction is estimated to arrive around 2035.
The Island's central invention, adult human clones grown as spare bodies for the rich, is no nearer than it was in 2005, but the pressures behind it are real: a chronic organ shortage, a black market that buys from poorer donors, and a regulated clinical trial of gene-edited pig kidneys that began in November 2025. It was also right that surrogacy would become a contested commercial service.
Read the review · 5.8/10 →
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ISLAND-1 | Fully grown human clones are produced in secret and kept as a supply of organs and pregnancies for wealthy clients. Core premise: every character is a clone or a clone's sponsor, and the plot is their escape. |
5 | FAR 2100 (2070–2200) | 5% | 18% |
| ISLAND-2 | Replacement organs are produced on demand for individual patients, so that a failing organ can be swapped out without waiting for a human donor. Major: the organ supply is what the clones are for and why the sponsors pay. |
4 | ARRIVING 2035 (2030–2045) | 91% | 100% |
| ISLAND-3 | A woman carries a pregnancy for wealthy clients under an arranged service, as a standard option in reproductive medicine. Supporting: surrogacy is one of the two uses of the clones and drives part of the chase. |
3 | ARRIVED arrived 1999 | 100% | 100% |
| ISLAND-4 | Rich buyers obtain organs outside the legal system, taken from people with far less money or power. Supporting: the sponsors' wealth and the compound's secrecy are the shadow trade in which the plot sits. |
3 | ARRIVED arrived 2008 | 100% | 100% |
| P(n) = P20 = Σ(weight × chance by 2046) ÷ Σ weight = 9.9 ÷ 15 = 66% | |||||
| P50 = 10.9 ÷ 15 = 73% | |||||
Already here today (arrived 1, arriving ½, weighted): 53%.
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ISLAND-1
Fully grown human clones are produced in secret and kept as a supply of organs and pregnancies for wealthy clients.
Weight 5/5 · Core premise: every character is a clone or a clone's sponsor, and the plot is their escape.
Primates have been cloned by somatic cell nuclear transfer since 2018, but the survivors came from fetal cells, and those made from adult cells lived only hours. Nobody has shown how to produce a healthy, fully grown human to order, still less one raised in ignorance. Reproductive human cloning is opposed by a UN declaration, and the same organs can be sought by other routes (see ISLAND-2). The range assumes that anyone ever tries. 12
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ISLAND-2
Replacement organs are produced on demand for individual patients, so that a failing organ can be swapped out without waiting for a human donor.
Weight 4/5 · Major: the organ supply is what the clones are for and why the sponsors pay.
The first regulated clinical trial of a gene-edited pig kidney (ten edits) began in November 2025 at NYU Langone, after the US FDA cleared the application in early 2025. It is a trial of six patients, expanding to about 50, restricted to people aged 55 to 70 who are unlikely to receive a human kidney within five years. Early recipients have had setbacks, including one whose pig kidney was removed in April 2025 after complications from an unrelated infection. The organ is a standard animal product rather than one made for the individual, so the claim is met only in part. 345
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ISLAND-3
A woman carries a pregnancy for wealthy clients under an arranged service, as a standard option in reproductive medicine.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: surrogacy is one of the two uses of the clones and drives part of the chase.
Gestational surrogacy is an established practice. In US surveillance data, gestational carrier cycles rose from 727 in 1999 to 3,432 in 2013, the earliest and latest years of that study, and the practice itself is older. It is also contested. Italy made surrogacy a universal crime in 2024, so its citizens can be prosecuted for using it abroad. The difference from the film is consent: real carriers are adults who agree, with legal contracts, not clones. 678
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ISLAND-4
Rich buyers obtain organs outside the legal system, taken from people with far less money or power.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: the sponsors' wealth and the compound's secrecy are the shadow trade in which the plot sits.
A court case in Kosovo showed it in 2008: illegal kidney transplants at a private clinic in Pristina, donors recruited from poorer countries and promised up to $15,000, recipients who reportedly paid up to $130,000. Doctors were convicted in 2013. The trade is older than that case and its full scale is unknown. In the US, buying and selling organs has been a federal crime since 1984. The film's version, taking a life, is far beyond what these cases show. 910
- FOR Meet Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, the First Monkey Clones Produced by Method that Made Dolly. Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2018-01-25. The first primates cloned by nuclear transfer. They came from fetal cells, and clones from adult cells survived only a few hours.
- AGAINST United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning (Resolution 59/280). DRZE (German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences), 2005-03-08. Text of the 2005 UN General Assembly declaration calling on states to prohibit all forms of human cloning.
- FOR First Gene-Edited Pig Kidney Transplant Clinical Trial Begins at NYU Langone Health. NYU Langone Health, 2025-11-05. The first surgery in the EXPAND trial of the UKidney, a pig kidney with six human genes added and four pig genes knocked out.
- FOR United Therapeutics' Gene-Edited Kidney Xenotranspant UKidney Cleared for US Trial. CGTlive, 2025-02-03. Reports the first FDA clearance for a xenokidney product, for a phase 1/2/3 trial aiming at a biologics licence.
- AGAINST The First Clinical Renal Xenotransplantation Study (EXPAND): Evaluating Safety, Function, and Zoonotic Risks. Health Care Science, 2025-12-04. Editorial describing a small single-arm trial for a narrow group of patients, with primary endpoints at 24 weeks. It is early evidence, not an established therapy.
- FOR Trends and outcomes of gestational surrogacy in the United States. Fertility and Sterility, 2016-08-01. Of 2,071,984 ART cycles in 1999 to 2013, 30,927 used a gestational carrier, rising from 727 cycles in 1999 to 3,432 in 2013.
- CONTEXT California Family Code section 7962. California Public.Law, 2020-01-01. A US state sets out what a gestational carrier agreement must contain, including separate lawyers for each side.
- AGAINST Senate gives final OK to bill against surrogacy. ANSA, 2024-10-16. Italy's Senate voted 84 to 58 to make surrogacy a universal crime, even when done abroad.
- FOR EU Launches New Probe In Kosovo Organ-Trafficking Case. RFE/RL, 2013-04-30. Five doctors were convicted over at least 23 illegal kidney transplants at the Medicus clinic. Many donors said they never received the money.
- AGAINST National Organ Transplant Act of 1984. Wikipedia, 1984-10-19. US law makes it a federal crime to buy or sell human organs, with a fine of $50,000 or up to five years in prison.
Ledger updated 6 Nov 2026. All works on the P(n) Board · Method