this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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If it's not open source and open hardware I'm not putting that shit in my head lmfao
Yep, there's already horror stories about other implants where the patients were left high and dry when the company that made them went under.
"Sorry your pacemaker has the silliest little flaw but the patented blobbed firmware could only be updated with some vendor program on Windows XP that was reliant on XP-specific libraries but Service Pack 2 broke it after the company went under..."
Same stuff with car electronics. Maddening.
Or it just shuts off because it can't connect to the company servers any more.
It's only a hop step from there to something less invasive thankfully.
Intravascular neural interfaces are already reducing the invasiveness, but hopefully that is just a short step.
I doubt I'd care if I was paraplegic. Very easy to say from a point of privilege.
You might. You don't want to get into a situation where Neuralink says that they're not doing BCI like the ones installed in your head any more, and have it shut down spontaneously when the company turns off support.
It's happened before to people with artificial eyes, and they're both left blind because the hardware doesn't work any more, and they can't afford to have it removed (if that's even safely doable).
It's exactly the people that can have a choice who should be helping those who can't, don't you agree?
The fight for open software and hardware wouldn't be made by going around paraplegic people and bothering them about it, but by discussing it with the vendors and legislators.