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What would you get implanted?
electricitylikesme
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Implants are a staple of science fiction, but the reality of getting them is something of a leap for a lot of people since it has a strong feeling of permanence about it. There are also still practical problems which make the reality of living with implanted technology problematic: powering such a device being the big one.
If I could do it tomorrow, I'd get RFIDs implanted in both my hands, if they supported one of the standard encryption protocols. The ones you can buy today don't have any intelligence to do that, and so aren't really "secure" - although they would work with most of the types of off-the-shelf readers out there.
I've considered having neodymium magnets implanted under my fingers, since an innate electrical sense sounds awesome - the problem is it's not innate, and would basically mean I couldn't go near MRI or strong magnetism without injury. Unfortunately there's no way at the moment to do a decent sense without magnets.
Going a little bit more extreme, if I could find a bone-conductive set of wireless earphones that would fit just under my scalp, I'd definitely get that put in. The area is not so permanent as to be unremovable, but it seems like it would be incredibly convenient to be able to speaker-phone anywhere I wanted to. But there's no way to keep something like that powered at the moment.
With VR finally developing a little bit, the most extreme thing I'd do (but which I doubt I can find a surgeon willing to do it) would be to get bone anchored clips put in my face to support VR hardware. With the right design I figure you'd be able to have them covered most of the time, but then wouldn't need headstraps or bands to keep things stable and in-place.
What would you be willing to commit to, at what sort of technological and permanence level?
If I could do it tomorrow, I'd get RFIDs implanted in both my hands, if they supported one of the standard encryption protocols. The ones you can buy today don't have any intelligence to do that, and so aren't really "secure" - although they would work with most of the types of off-the-shelf readers out there.
I've considered having neodymium magnets implanted under my fingers, since an innate electrical sense sounds awesome - the problem is it's not innate, and would basically mean I couldn't go near MRI or strong magnetism without injury. Unfortunately there's no way at the moment to do a decent sense without magnets.
Going a little bit more extreme, if I could find a bone-conductive set of wireless earphones that would fit just under my scalp, I'd definitely get that put in. The area is not so permanent as to be unremovable, but it seems like it would be incredibly convenient to be able to speaker-phone anywhere I wanted to. But there's no way to keep something like that powered at the moment.
With VR finally developing a little bit, the most extreme thing I'd do (but which I doubt I can find a surgeon willing to do it) would be to get bone anchored clips put in my face to support VR hardware. With the right design I figure you'd be able to have them covered most of the time, but then wouldn't need headstraps or bands to keep things stable and in-place.
What would you be willing to commit to, at what sort of technological and permanence level?
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Like, if it was possible to grow a tapetum lucidum without problems, I'd totally get some. Some super clunky system that requires recharging constantly? Not as interested. There's a fairly high expectation of convenience, or the implant needs to do something massively important to justify being inconvenient. Like an artificial leg whose battery requires recharging occasionally for natural movement? Or something like that.
The very first idea for the hand was a lighter in the thumb. Because come on, who doesn't want that? And I don't even smoke!
I'd like to chop off my arms and get robot arms once better ones are available
also, all artificial organs once they've been tested and approved and all that shit
So for the bulk of my lifetime, unless the implant is vital to my continued existence (replacement heart, cancer-fighting nanomachines), I will probably not partake.
That said, I expect wearables, contact lenses, and other means of projecting AR into my field of view without any implants will become the norm in the next few decades, and I am 100% down with that.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Full ork warboss.
^ This
As cool as all this sounds, what about that ipod I bought that just abruptly stopped working after a couple months and never turned on again. It was an expensive name brand techno whatever gadget.
What if that were my cyber-liver? No thank you.
If I need a pacemaker, OK. But elective anything implantable tech can piss off.
Agreed - the progression of technology means that unless you like going under the knife every year to get the latest iEyes, you're going to be better off with wearables than implantables unless it's something major like artificial organs or adamantium endoskeleton for which latest and greatest performance is not a factor.
More complex stuff like arms and organs? Nah. Incredibly complex and delicate pieces of machinery are too expensive to buy, too liable to fail and too expensive to maintain properly. Think Ghost in the Shell, where they mention in an episode that the most modified members of section 9 (Batou and Kusanagi, who have complete cybernetic bodies) essentially BELONG to the government because there is no way they could pay for their bodies themselves.
It's like having a permanent company car that you need to live.
Although cyberbrains are incredibly tempting.
And these days probably my knees as well since they're making more noise than they should.
I've always thought Cyberware was cool but thinking about it, I mean really thinking about it, kinda scares me. The way the machine interfaces with the body/mind scares me.
Day two: pocket device that you can activate that will rickroll every cyber-headphone user in a half block radius
I'm interested in upgrading.
Long term, everything. Upload my brain, then give me a remote-controlled robot me to roll around in. (Maybe let's not do the 'But is that YOU!?' debate on this one, its basically as impossible to argue another person around on as religion.)
However I would like body temp regulators ( never need a coat again!) And maybe implants that make exercise easier by eliminating lactic acid and increaseing your oxygen intake. Maybe one that filters all the nasty stuff I eat out of food before dusgestion
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I think external devices do as well - offloading much of your cognition to a smart device is as relevant as your badass titanium claw arms.
Perhaps I'm missing the point of that. Why is a strap or headband not preferable to metal brackets in your skin, other than the 'cool factor'?
My dad calls his smartphone his "outboard brain" and "memory prosthetic".
I'm entirely down with AR eyes or lenses of some sort, including bone-anchored flanges to mount a lens and power it. Augmented hearing as well.
I want status updates mostly though... heart rate, caloric intake, etc.
@Belasco32 will want something to regulate her nerves so FM doesn't kill her anymore.
I've always said that I'll be second in line for the internet brain jack, just to make sure the first guy lives. I wonder if I'd do that now... mostly at my age I'm wanting shit that keeps me running how I am, or gets me closer to 20s function.
A data storage brain implant would be lovely. I would prefer USB to wifi or 3G, to avoid any possibility of unwanted access. Plug my usb port into the laptop, drag and drop some searchable .pdf files over, and then search through the text with my mind/brain. Would be useful.
It would help solve many problems we have in education. There would be no need to focus on memorization or information acquisition, because everyone would have the data right there. Instead, education could focus on how to use the information. No more exam questions of "When was so-and-so born" because that information could be accessed via search. Instead, questions would focus on the relevance and utility of that information.
Research would be aided as well. If you want to work on X, start by dumping all the google scholar articles about X into your storage unit.
Any implant that would allow me to dump data into my mind/brain would be keen.
Yeah, let's live like in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Lifted a chair? Better eat two candy bars!
Of course, the same can be said for organic livers too. I wouldn't want to go whole hog on gen 1 implants, but people's body parts do explode into a fountain of (internal) blood or decaying matter that poisons the rest of the body reasonably often. Brains, while one of the last to likely get any enhancement due to the complexity and likely cultural / legal barriers, are particularly shit, and a very substantial portion of all people that have ever lived have had faulty brains in terms of mental illness, not to mention all sort of other severe programming flaws (certain people believe in wrong ideas more if presented with facts stating they are wrong).
Ditto for replacing a lot of stuff. There is always a good argument for waiting a generation, but being stuck with double strength arms instead of triple strength arms isn't exactly being consigned to an inescapable abyss from which you will never surface.
There does need to be a focus on security, but all cybernetic security concerns are just reflavored versions of existing concerns. Sure, someone can send a virus to your cyber arm, or they can stick your bio arm with an infected needle. Sure, someone can hack your cyber brain, or they can slip a roofie into your drink. And really, the number of people capable of sticking a roofie in a drink is substantially larger than the number of black hat hackers in our Shadowrun future. And all of this ignores the fact that, barring cyber upgrades, even improvised weapons that cannot be reasonably restricted are still extremely dangerous to deadly. The idea of these sorts of concerns is interesting because it is exotic, but it doesn't compare to the realistic danger of being hit with a hammer.
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For me, personally, I view my physical body as purely utilitarian, and would replace anything and everything that met a cost / benefit analysis, to include large sections of my brain. I have no attachment to my right arm beyond the benefits of having a right arm, and would gladly replace it with any arm of equal or greater performance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You
For me that's what cemented that I would not be suitable to get any sort of brain implant. The ability to relieve and 2nd guess every moment with perfect clarity would absolutely wreak havoc with my OCD.