A Boring Dystopia

As much as I share this sentiment in general, in this case its probably more likely that this has something to with liability if something goes wrong with the implant. And I would bet the company never released the schematics and code so that aint helpin.

Could prob be solved if implants would be required to be open source so that third party servicing could happen.

I am guessing/hoping that the device needed maintenance and since nobody can maintain it, it’s removed for safety reasons. I think They wouldn’t perform surgery without such a safety need.

The BEST timeline.

Sounds like she was in a trial so probably didn’t pay for it and doesn’t own it.

It’s still kind of fucked up that she has to have surgery to remove it but she probably agreed to these terms before it was installed.

Yeah theres a lot here that stinks, I'm going to have to find more sources on it.

This clearly violates informed consent, and a whole bunch of study related laws, and laws involving patient care and risks of invasive procedure.

She had to agree to the surgery to remove it at some point, and it could not have been in informed consent documentation, because she could have revoked that agreement before the surgery.

I doubt this story. I really doubt this.

However, I don't know shit about fuck about Australian law.

An awful lot of EULAs (software or otherwise) include odious clauses or terms easily misused. I daresay even most, since US and international contract law is heavily biased towards industrial corporations being permitted to include and enforce such terms.

Often, court cases are about arguing that a clause in question is, in fact, odious and unenforceable without causing undue suffering.

If the patient dies or suffers permanent health effects from the extraction surgery, I anticipate a wrongful death lawsuit may well follow.

It was compulsory brain surgery for a repo. ... This is the sort of inciting incident that triggers cyberpunk dystopian adventures

Sure is.

At least, when the company goes defunct, they should be forced to sell it to a company that's required to maintain the upkeep for products using the IP they bought or the government should eminent domain

So should a lot of research, for public benefit. Medical absolutely, space absolutely.

The problem with that model is no one acquires immoral levels of wealth, which means those that set policy don't get as large of bribes.

And as a species, our actions have spoken on no uncertain terms, we'd literally rather destroy our only habitat and ourselves then let go of the dream of living like modern Pharoahs on the backs of others.

Liar. You're not a dullard at all.

This is a fascinating perspective, thanks for sharing your experience. It makes me really happy to hear first hand how this new technology does improve quality of life for people.

The fun thing is that half the time Johnny complains, you gain approval with him anyway. He may bitch about you stopping to save random folks and talk about how it won't actually change anything, but he still approves deep down. He also approves if you call him on his bullshit, which is a nice change from most RPGs requiring you to be absurdly supportive of your party's awful decisions to top off that approval meter.

Even worse. They would sue the crap out of her.

For instance if your hip implant manufacturer went out of business you wouldn't expect them to come take your hip.

What should have happened it would have been regulatory capture where when they went out of business the government should have stepped in and taken their source code and made it public domain.

I'm sure some enterprising people would have been glad to host whatever servers were needed to keep this woman's seizures from working and her brain implant operational.

It's not the government though. It looks like the company.

This was a trial and the implant likely required to communicate with their servers and without them it wasn't able to work.

The real issue is that probably anything that's installed in humans needs to have schematics and software made public domain when company goes out of business so someone else could maintain it to avoid these issues.

I expect it would in fact be hugely expensive to keep the woman's implant going: anything medical is even more expensive that aeronautical stuff. And also, who bears responsibility when the company tanks and the woman has an issue with her implant?

But here's what I think: innovative startups that want to run tests of experimental implants (looking at you Elon) should be legally required to set money aside to support the test subjects' implanted hardware until the end of their natural life or until the implant fails, whichever comes first, if the company tanks.

The money should pay for a skeletal crew of the original engineers working for a government-owned company set up and dedicated solely to that support after the original company disappears, and it should pay for the test subjects' medical expenses related to their implants.