In 2059 the first internet-connected brain implants began medical trials. People were skeptical of course but they slowly grew in popularity and were no longer taboo after 12 years. By 2094, about 90% of adults had implants (now just called a link) and multiple brands were competing to gain permission for child versions. They argued that the chips had become so small that they could nearly be attached to the brain stem of an infant.
Three years later they installed the first link on an infant. By this point all but the naturalists had embraced links as a part of life, as regular as rush hour traffic. Links at this time were now able to read thoughts faster than the person realized they were happening. For example, if you began to wonder who was the 14th President of the United States, your thoughts wouldn’t make it much past was before the link would determine what you wanted to know, search the Central Knowledge Repository for the answer, and implant it into your thought stream.
This obviously has a number of practical benefits, though you may be wondering if we lost anything from it. Well, eventually they canceled Jeopardy in 2097 when it became too difficult to find competitors without links. Surprisingly though, the show stayed on air for another 30 years. Many found it hilarious to watch contestants struggle to recall answers that their links will have put into their heads before they even read the question, thanks to retina-capture introduced in 2082. Unfortunately, update 47203 to the Central Knowledge Repository added the complete transcriptions of many TV shows. After this, by merely looking at any scene of a particular Jeopardy episode you would know everything that happens and who wins, removing most of the fun. Luckily, the Keepers of Knowledge (aka nerds who maintain the Repository and wanted to sound cool) decided to banish movie plots from the CNR so that films wouldn’t be spoiled as soon as you heard the name.
Anyways, back to the main implant history. Once child and infant links were working well, it didn’t take long before someone cut to the chase and had one added to their newborn. It took less than a year for this to become the norm. Now, whenever a baby is born, doctors simply ask if it should be “fully prepped”, which means removing the umbilical cord, screening their DNA for any potential defects, giving them a vaccine for all 182 remaining viruses, and of course installing a link.
I was one of these babies, according to my link I’m the 56,329,894th to be born this way. I’ve had access to all public knowledge since my birth, my mind tethered directly to a computational marvel, and yet I still have to write this stupid essay for history class.