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.
Someone hasn’t played the Deus Ex series…
No. Restoring human-like capability following some kind of traumatic event, sure.
“Nothing voluntary” and “nothing that grants superhuman abilities” are the bare minimum to make sure it doesn’t turn into an arms race, leading to a tiered society with the enhanced elite ruling over the organic poor.
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.
Heavily depends on what they do, how reliable the tech is at the time, and who makes them, realistically for anything that I expect to actually become available in my lifetime, the answer is probably not
As a general concept, Im quite favorable towards the notion of using technology to change the human condition (Id consider myself a transhumanist), but that assumes a given change is both desirable and significant enough to be worth the personal risks (for example, of surgery), and I cant think of much that any relatively near future cybernetic implant would be likely able to do that would actually be a meaningful improvement. Restoring lost function is one thing, but at the moment I dont have any personal need for that. Most ideas Ive seen suggested beyond that boil down to “using your brain to control a computer”, which well, is something your brain can already do, its just using your hands and senses in combination with traditional input and output devices to do it.
There are hypothetical things that one could imagine an implant doing that would interest me, for example, one could picture something that could add visual information of parts of the light spectrum one cannot currently see, or additional appendages beyond the natural number (maybe that goes beyond a simple implant though), or even more speculatively, one could picture some implant containing clusters of real or simulated neurons that can be trained to add additional capacity to the brain in some way. But, so far as I can see, nothing like that is realistically going to exist for quite a long time, and I would be extremely skeptical of anyone claiming otherwise, because modern technology companies love to sell hype.
Theres also the consideration that, well, you would need to really trust the manufacturer, programmer etc of any such device, the more so the more invasive it is and the more you anticipate relying on it if it is useful, and I would not trust, well, any manufacturer operating under the current economic model that would actually have the resources to develop and test such a device. For anything you incorporate into yourself like that, robustness, available maintenance and personal control over all aspects of the device are paramount, and those things are not the things that let a technology company maximize their profits.
Nice try, Sarif Industries. I’ve played some Deus Ex, I know how this goes.
No.
I’ve seen how often tech breaks, gets controlled, becomes unsupported, and can never really get things “right.”
But like you said, if it’s that or blindness, sure. But I’m not chopping off good parts.
I don’t trust companies to even give me usable software anymore, let alone functioning hardware.
they have no business touching any human in a medical sense… HELL NO
Lotsa old people get hip replacements.
Stick to mechanical stuff that cant become enshittified later.
RIP if you need a pacemaker
Better pay your subscription
Yes, just seeing the headline was a yes - but yeah nothing for the brain, just robot arms and legs and eyes for now
Out of curiosity, what advantages do you see yourself getting with robotic limbs? If I were to do a body part it would probably be spine for all around better body support.
