Not necessarily a neuralink specifically, just any genre or type of cybernetic implants, if they were or will become available. I’m super hesitant on anything interfacing with my brain so I’d probably stay organic, except like if I lost my eyesight or hearing.
New Chrome? Well Cyberpunk made it seem fun, but in reality you’d get so many ads…
I used to be really deep into this rabbit hole. Theres a community of “biohackers” who do stuff like inserting rfid chips and magnets under the skin.
The magnet in the finger tip is what always interested me, but im too much of a chicken to seriously consider doing it because its not a medical procedure (you can’t just go to a doctor afaia and request to have it implanted - theyll just refuse to do it) so you need to do it with local anaesthetics that you can legally acquire, yourself or with a friend.
People who have done it have reported they became able to sense electromagnetic fields once they got used to its sensitivity, which is bizarre and awesome at the same time. They literally gave themselves a “sixth sense”
Depends on the definition of “cybernetic”. Is a cochlea implant cybernetic? Is a replacement lens one? A tooth filling?
Not sure what I would be able to get that’s an improvement on my current body. Maybe something that behaves as a mouse/keyboard? It could be interesting to have something that skips songs playing or can click the TV interface but not sure why I wouldn’t just get 5 mice or have a programmable IR blaster on the phone. Even something minor like a chip in the hand for RFID sounds better served with a smart ring since a power source, replacements and programmability sounds better than essentially just having a card chip in the hand. Make the ring into a solar panel with a physical on/off switch and it fits all my requirements.
So probably not anything, only possibility is that I lose something such as hearing, vision, leg and I get a replacement.
Yes, if they’re not owned and controlled by some corporate entity.
Considering how unlikely that is, I’ll probably never get cybernetic implants.
I wouldn’t want them. Too much that can go wrong.
Yes, to solve a medical issue or to genuinely improve my existence.
But if we’re talking about something really advanced with software in it I need open source. I’ve already read real news articles about ocular implants where the company that supports them went out of business. Second Sight Medical Products.
I can’t imagine what it must be like to have an implant in my body that’s been bricked due to some corporate bullshit.
I really wonder about the blindness one. Cameras are simple now, we just need a way to feed the information into the brain. It doesn’t need to be anything as fancy as an eyeball, just glasses with a camera.
It’s been done. There are some people with cybernetic optical implants which give limited vision.
The company that did this went bankrupt, and a patent troll bought the patent. The implants are now rotting away inside the heads of the original test subjects, and no doctor knows how to remove them because the procedure is also part of the patent.
As long as it doesn’t require a fucking WiFi connection and corporate account to use.
Lotta badasses in here who would never compromise on their ideals of software purity.
That is, until the very moment they became disabled or unhealthy in a way that an implant with proprietary blobs can fix…
For Funsies? Likely not, no.
For medical reasons like steering a prostetic, yeah, maybe.
I’d need to completely own it. I don’t want my extended memory storage to now also include product placement in my childhood memories or the cops can make my bionic legs stop working or whatever.
However, in the hypothetical situation where I completely own my augmentations, 100% I’m getting enhancements. In fact I would question the efficiency of giving me implants, it might just be easier to copy my brain into a completely robotic body.
The downside of copying your brain is that it’s a copy, you’ll have your original meat body and a separate mechanical body which minds which immediately start to diverge. They’re both still you, but meatman gets no upgrades. You could destroy your meat body as part of the transfer but then it’s reasonable to say you’re dead with a robot that thinks it’s you.
The closest you can get to a proper transfer would need an implant which works similar to how your body naturally replaces cells, the implant would gradually take over neurons until you have a fully mech brain which can be transplanted to a new body. You could argue that’s still just a destructive copy but I think it’s within most people’s tolerance.
Yeah but speaking as meatman I’m okay with meatman dying. Robot me will be the real me, meat me is ephemeral.
I don’t believe in souls. I view my existence as like a wave, I am briefly in this cohesive form and will inevitably break upon the shore and both cease to be a wave yet forever be the ocean. Continuously moved and reshaped and never the same wave I was.
A body that allows my perception of existence to continue would prevent that, I would be able to continue to “exist” as I perceive it for much longer.
So yeah for me at least you can skip the gradual stuff. Just ctrl + c, ctrl + v and recycle the original.
most people’s tolerance.
Most people do not have an existential crisis over whether a teleporter is teleporting them or killing and remaking them. It’s mostly a small subset of people who have that worry.
I would need a few things met:
- No data flow back to my brain
- Open source
- Not flagged as disallowed by TSA
- Programmable (kind of goes with OSS)
- Actually useful
- Extremely minimal maintenance
If all of these were met, HEEELLLL YEA
Can’t wait to accidentally brick my eyes trying to install an ad blocker lol
No data flow back to my brain
Isn’t that just a current generation prosthetic?
Lotsa old people get hip replacements.
Stick to mechanical stuff that cant become enshittified later.
Hip replacements with a step counter coming soon
RIP if you need a pacemaker
My father ran a prosthetics clinic for 35 years. Before that he worked for his father doing very much the same thing for a decade prior.
His words of wisdom were, “The real thing is always better because you can feel with it.”
We may be able to make materials that far exceed the capabilities of the human body, but until you can wire up every single nerve and use the thing exactly like you would a real limb, prosthetics will ALWAYS be lesser, no matter their capabilities. There’s no point in having sword arms if you can’t be proficient overnight with swinging a blade with your elbow.
But, in good faith, yeah, I’d gladly swap my eyes for something better. Astigmatism sucks, and I’m damn near legally blind as it is. Not having to wear glasses would be amazing. Gimme some Kiroshi Optics any day! But, the only reason I’d want them is because they’d be better than what I have. Wearing glasses isn’t a huge deal.
Astigmatism in both eyes over here!
As a kid who grew up on TNG, I always wished my glasses were like Geordi’s VISOR….
Gimme some Kiroshi Optics any day!
I’d settle for some second-hand Hannibal Chews. Bifocals suck.
