“Why is content king, Senatrina?” His voice was nasal and nerdy, like many PhDs in their mid-20s.

She looked up as if pleading for freedom from morons. “The obvious, Dr. Joyce. Because it’s entertaining. Keeps people coming back. Paying top dollar, mindcoin, thoughtcycles, whatever.”

“More fundamentally – because people believe it’s good content. They may not really like it. Enjoy it. Trust it. But they think it’s good, better than other options.”

“Options – you mean other content? Competing movies, narratives, streaming series, whatever?”

“Way broader, Senatrina. Any other options for how to use their time. Brain. Money. Vote. Fuck the content. What if we can provide the same effects – including votes for you, money and fame for us both – without any real content? What matters is what people do. What they think or feel or believe or experience because of the content are just means to that end.”

“OK, James. I’m sold. For now. I’ll try your system. Remember I have my security team – which is way better than yours – monitoring the whole thing. Any tricks, you mention this meeting to anyone, they’ll respond.” James nodded, then put a cap on her. Over the next few minutes, wires from the cap the size of hairs burrowed into her scalp as she lay down, drank a cup of nightwater, and closed her eyes.

She woke up the early the next morning, then lounged in bed until noon basking in her brain before yelling: “James! Get in here now!” She put on the cap and it began extracting the fake hair that it implanted last night. James burst through the door to her luxury bedroom on his private yacht and looked at her questioningly. She smiled at him. “It… it worked! It was… wow!! I know it wasn’t real, but it was still so… intense.”

“Because you believed it was real. Your brain focuses on what you wanted. It fills in everything else or just ignored inconsistencies. Like dreaming or hallucinations. Or other types of audiovideo, VR, AR, 3DO, powerstreaming, whatever.”

“And it’s totally over now, right? This thing is removing those hair plugs? No sneaky tricks last night?”

“Correct, ma’am. As we agreed, and your security team will verify, we only accessed your neural interface for a limited time in specific ways. We were just triggering PGO waves, enhancing thalamic bursts, suppressing noradrenergic function to manage attention, other stuff, you know.”

“Congress didn’t make me chair of the neural interface committee casually. Indeed I do know how it works, James. And doesn’t work. I know we’re still decades away from a perfectly convincing neural interface, with movement, kinesthetics, full sensory immersion, all that. But, like you said, just suspend disbelief and the gaps don’t matter.” She shook her head. “You need a better word than ‘dream.’ So much more tangible, real, meaningful. It was somehow like I was watching the greatest science fiction show ever and also simultaneously part of it. Everything that happened was because I wanted it. And that just sucked me in more. Like I knew I was dreaming but I was conscious too.”

“You were both of those, ma’am. Depending on your definition.”

“Yeah. It was really intense but also so far from reality. So much of it was missing. I never really saw anything, just got impressions. There wasn’t a plot. I kept jumping between scenes and places without any rhyme or reason.”

“We call that Dream of consciousness, Senatrina.”

She nodded. “It was like that, James. Voice, touch, facial expressions – even faces – none of that. So much of the normal sensory experience was missing. There were other characters but I don’t remember their words or faces, just impressions, like I knew what they wanted to communicate so there was no need for talk or touch or any normal interaction.”

“That would have just got in the way, ma’am. That’s what it feels like when our AI engine creates new content for you in real-time based on your brain activity– not just feelings but expectations, mental microexpressions, concepts – most of which you weren’t thinking about.”

“That’s what it felt like. Just feelings, experiences. It triggered some memories of books I read, shows I watched, games I played, but… I didn’t even know they were still knocking around my noggin somewhere. I never would have thought about them again otherwise.”

“What else do you remember?”

“Everywhere I turned, in my mind, there was something new, fun, that I just had to try. It felt like I was at a megamall or theme park with so many different attractions tailored for tech nerds like me. I was racing this high-tech motorcycle through this tunnel with all kinds of gizmos, like speed boosts and stun cannons. Suddenly I’m on this roller coaster in outer space on the inside of a ringworld around a red giant. Then I was jumping around a waterfall where I could control gravity to pull me in any direction and I knew I was wet but a second later I was dry and piloting a personal spaceship flying above it all.”

James smiled. “It’ll be that fun and intense for anyone who tries it. More, if you can help us. More real, more addictive, more personal.”

She frowned. “But… that’s the problem. Not just with this but all NICC. That’s what NICC means by Neuro-Inspired Content Creation. What I just had was a personalized mental experience, right?”

He hesitated. “Yeah.”

“Then I see why you need help. My help. It’s not a story I can really discuss with anyone else who used your system. Everyone gets different content. So it’s kinda the opposite of Powerstreaming – which I guess would be your main competitor, right?”

“That’s correct, ma’am.”

“That’s a huge drawback for me, at least as an investor. With conventional content, everyone sees the same thing. You watch the Three Body Expanse, Doctor Black, Neuromirror, Project Hail Cocaine Bear, Severance World, whatever, you can discuss it with anyone else who saw it. Powerstreaming makes it faster but it’s still the same show for everyone. People don’t Powerstream to enjoy the show. Nobody cares about that anymore – nobody whose age doesn’t include the h-word. They do it so they can keep up, connect with other people through shared narratives, which today means whatever’s streaming on Netflux and Bcyfy and Who’s Loo and Nile One and whatever. They gotta suck in days of content in one long night or they may as well be in the hundy club. And they don’t just wanna talk with their friends. They wanna see reviews and comments and reactions and all that so they fit in.”

“I understand, Senatrina. We are working on that, though. We can create real-time content guided by couples, friends, internet groups, existing narratives, and so on so it’s more of a shared experience.”

“But the more people you involve, the less personalized it is. And it’ll still never be the same experience for everyone. You’ll always have that disadvantage.” She paused. “And Powerstreaming is allowed. NICC isn’t. Medically, technically, legally-”

He sighed. “As to the first two, it depends on their definition, what equipment they have. Legally – that’s a big part of why you’re here, Senatrina.”

“But new legislation will get a lot of attention and look suspicious. I got elected to protect the public from people like you. And that’s the other reason I’m here. You want me to invest. Fine. Instead of money, you give me a 92% stake in your company for changing laws.” 

“Not change laws. Just make a few public comments that gaslight some official definitions. A few words to throw a wrench into how people interpret some drivel that started from a small group of willful societies insisting on arcane academic gatekeeping. We need to be able to say that terms like neurohax or dreaming or subliminal or consumer protection don’t mean quite what the judge or doctor or federal agency thought. They don’t apply to what we developed. And why should they? They were developed in a bygone era by a byzantine team of egghead quacks, clinging to ideas and ethics that only matter to the hundy club.”

“Call it what you will. You want me on your Dream Team, you know the price. Security has been monitoring this. Hear that sound? That’s my helicopter powering up.”

“I’m sorry Senatrina, but-”

“We’re done here. Remember, we agreed this meeting is totally confidential.”

“Wait! I… I trusted you. Were you really here in good faith or just to check us out?”

She stood up. “Breach our confidentiality agreement, I’ll breach your nice yacht here, and you.” She left the room, walked to the yacht’s helipad, and got in. She watched as James followed her and pounded on the helicopter door, then she smiled as his tears rolled down his handsome face. And they should. “Flow, thy tears,” the Senatrina said to herself as she directed one of her accountants to secretly short stock in Stream Park and buy as much Powerstreaming as she could.

Their yacht meeting was private, but the results were quite public. The Senatrina spearheaded laws and changes that made neural-inspired content creation illegal or impractical. A month after their meeting, NICC had to go through a human writer, who could never be fast enough. Industry writers donated to her campaign as their unions publicly supported her. Stream Park announced layoffs.

Mozza turned off the news, poured two glasses of champagne, and handed one to her senior security agent. “Well done, James. I’ll just call you that for fun. She really thought you worked for Stream Park.”

“She totally fell for it, boss.” His deep voice resonated throughout the penthouse at Powerstreaming headquarters. “Hook, line and sinker.”

Mozza nodded. “And rod, reel, arm, mind, soul, and Stream Park.”

“Not just Stream Park, boss. NICCoStream. DreamWorld. Dreamsy Plus. Everyone who wants to compete with us via the most promising competitive technology out there.”

“And the investment community sees that.” Her smile grew broader as she checked stock prices. “Since we poured the champagne, I made more than enough extra money to pay you for your next gig. With a bonus. But we’ll get to that later.”