Ask Lemmy

Absolutely not

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60416058

These people permanently changed their bodies in ways that will have lifelong impacts (as one example they can never have an MRI) just to be abandoned.

Only if they're open source, and even then its a big if.

It would need to have a firewall, only allowing outgoing requests

Any mechanical only part without software. Nothing from head or spine.

I remember a thought from CGP Grey that went along the lines of..

At some point cybernetics will be like smart phones; people look at you weird if you don't have one.

No way. If RoboCop or Cyberpunk is anything to go off of, trusting a company to supply parts for your own body is not a good idea.

Besides, I've always liked my equipment in stock form, to really appreciate it for what it is at its core.

Tail.

If you're going to trust a corporation to casually touch your brain, you're not using it, so you should do it!

As much as the weakness of flesh disgusts me, I wouldn't touch cybernetics with a ten foot pole, unless they corrected a major disability/were lifesaving.

Only if the software stack was GPLv3 licensed (or whichever was the most aggressive version of the license) and the computational hardware was reasonably open as well, preferably completely open like RISC and maybe a fully open UEFI.

I need to trust anything that is going to become part of me.

No, because then it'd be like in the Genetic Opera where we don't own the parts we need to keep us alive. We'd have to pay those too, in absurd amounts. And if we don't, we'll just die. It's already looking like that anyways with the "Pay or Die" system we have in healthcare.

I feel like... cybernetic implants will be here in a few years. They'll be designed by AI and incomprehensible to any human. They'll also be unaffordable to you, or anyone close to your age, allowing boomers and billionaires to outlive the children whose future they stole, again.

Oh, sorry, would I? Nah, I'd never be able to afford it.

If it meant I could download language packs, likely yes. Otherwise probably not. And not in the current setup where some company could likely turn off your brain if you missed a payment.

I used to be of the purely meat/unwired crowd, but that was a younger me. Now that I’m aging, I think I’d take my chrome and never look back.

Yes. I mean I have ink all over that resembles this so most def I would get a real one.

The default MO for large tech companies is they are trying to screw me out of as much money as possible with each product I buy. In this current world, you'd have to be crazy to justify implanted tech. Maybe in a different world where consumers have more power, all tech products have laws similar to car lemon laws, and where open standards dominate over proprietary tech, it could be reasonable.

My shoulder is busted so yes please I would like a robot arm 🦾

I've been fixing machines long enough to know I don't want to. Flesh is weak, but flesh adapts. It also doesn't get an internet connection, which means I get to sleep at night.

Edit: Thought about this a little more. I think a better frame for this question is whether or not you're comfortable accepting the flaws and limitations inherent in our bodies as they are. Obviously I, as an able-bodied person, am more comfortable accepting that my body isn't perfect. Someone with significant disabilities wouldn't hesitate to fix what causes them pain, discomfort, or applies cruel limits to the life they want to live.

I can accept that other people would choose to change, and their reasons are their own. I have no right to force them to accept a body that they hate, for the same reason no one should force me to accept a body that I hate. The Deaf community has had years and years to debate the ethics of cochlear implants, and their impact on their community's cultural values. I'm not Deaf, just a little HoH, but I try to pay attention to what they're talking about for reasons like this.

But as a trans person, I can accept that my body isn't ideal. There are things I would happily change, for the sake of personal comfort. But having put a great deal of thought into it, I would be much happier to live in a society that understood and respected how I perceive myself, and how I want to be perceived. It would render the desire for those aesthetic changes a point of preference, rather than emotional necessity. An accepting culture has been better for my dysphoria than an acceptable body.

It is a complicated philosophical question. I think the right answer is that people should have the freedom to make that choice, and it shouldn't be mandatory, dangerous, or open a path to exploitation.

like the borg?

Watch the black mirror episode on that

Chop me up, doc. I'm ready to live life by the hot wire.

Not unless it was medically necessary, and they had open hardware and software for the parts. Otherwise, I don't trust companies and the US government to properly regulate it, and I really don't feel like having to play whack-a-mole with adblockers or whatever to keep my cybernetic parts from beaming ads straight into my brain, or doing other crazy stuff. I'd also be wary of companies just discontinuing support for the implants when it became too expensive for them to maintain, and being left with a useless bunch of metal somewhere in my body.

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.

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"

Lotsa old people get hip replacements.

Stick to mechanical stuff that cant become enshittified later.

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 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

Is the hardware and software open source or otherwise not owned by a corporation. Then maybe.

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.

Yes, if they're not owned and controlled by some corporate entity.

Considering how unlikely that is, I'll probably never get cybernetic implants.

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.

For Funsies? Likely not, no.

For medical reasons like steering a prostetic, yeah, maybe.

As long as it doesn't require a fucking WiFi connection and corporate account to use.

New Chrome? Well Cyberpunk made it seem fun, but in reality you'd get so many ads...

Definitely. I couldn’t afford to anyway, but I would not want to be one of the early adopters. But eventually, they’ll be hacked and it’ll be possible to remove any insidious corporate “features” and I’d be left with all the benefits.

It depends.

If it is somehow able to be powered by the sugars in my body, doesn't need external recharging, and does not have any network connectivity, especially if it's an upgrade to what I currently have, probably.

If it fails any of those three tests, then probably not.