Pretty big assumption that you’d be able to afford augments that were in any way cool helpful to you, or quality.
What’s far more likely is that you’ll be “heavily incentivized” through “optional work benefits” to get augments through your employer to best suit their needs of you, effectively turning your body into flesh scaffolding for whatever it is cheaper for them to not fully roboticize. Refusal would, at best, prevent you from meeting metrics tailored to those augmented.
These corporate provided augments will be designed by the lowest cost vendor, built by the lowest cost manufacturer, installed by the lowest cost surgeons, running software designed/programmed by the lowest cost developers. Imagine every little bug, frustration, design flaw, safety issue, batshit lack of sanity you have ever encountered with workplace systems/software/equipment/procedure now inherently installed into your own body parts.
Companies will use this to offset costs to you. Like auto shops requiring mechanics to buy and maintain their own tools, but with whatever corners they can cut to save money. It’s not our job to maintain your shoulder sockets, despite the fact that our chosen hardware regularly exceeds safe limits on force. Good luck proving that it’s your employers fault in court after it’s already injured you!
Oh, the “safe lift leg and back support unit” has loose wiring that can come loose in scenarios involving certain repeated movements, which can cause a short, which can cause the unit to heat up to the point it’s slowly cooking your remaining natural organs?
Point is, regulation will never keep up with the horrors that companies will be able to justify against their employers. We’re in for a long long time of more laws being written in blood and corpses
Also, much like health insurance in the US effectively chaining people to a workplace, can you even imagine how much worse that would be when you got your arms from your job?
One of the most often overlooked meta problems with the cyberpunk genre is that you pretty much have to focus on characters that are in universe upper class to have any stories that aren’t just unendingly depressing in every single detail.
Those mechanical legs and arms and spine would be company property, too. They’d expect you to return them if you quit or were fired. Either that or charge you an exorbitant amount for them.
Imagine trying to set up a surgery to remove your Amazon Basics Mecha-Arm + Alexa and get replacement arms without your work insurance.
I feel like thats where you end up with a cyberpunk version of the tale about Loki avoiding decapitation.
He lost a bet with some dwarves and he’d wagered his head. Odin then said they could have his head, but since they didn’t own his neck they couldn’t decapitate him.
“You are welcome to reclaim your Arm lift ™ however you cannot cut open my clients skin or in any way interact with their flesh, since that isn’t your property”
Pretty big assumption that you’d be able to afford augments that were in any way cool helpful to you, or quality.
What’s far more likely is that you’ll be “heavily incentivized” through “optional work benefits” to get augments through your employer to best suit their needs of you, effectively turning your body into flesh scaffolding for whatever it is cheaper for them to not fully roboticize. Refusal would, at best, prevent you from meeting metrics tailored to those augmented.
These corporate provided augments will be designed by the lowest cost vendor, built by the lowest cost manufacturer, installed by the lowest cost surgeons, running software designed/programmed by the lowest cost developers. Imagine every little bug, frustration, design flaw, safety issue, batshit lack of sanity you have ever encountered with workplace systems/software/equipment/procedure now inherently installed into your own body parts.
Companies will use this to offset costs to you. Like auto shops requiring mechanics to buy and maintain their own tools, but with whatever corners they can cut to save money. It’s not our job to maintain your shoulder sockets, despite the fact that our chosen hardware regularly exceeds safe limits on force. Good luck proving that it’s your employers fault in court after it’s already injured you!
Oh, the “safe lift leg and back support unit” has loose wiring that can come loose in scenarios involving certain repeated movements, which can cause a short, which can cause the unit to heat up to the point it’s slowly cooking your remaining natural organs?
Point is, regulation will never keep up with the horrors that companies will be able to justify against their employers. We’re in for a long long time of more laws being written in blood and corpses
Also, much like health insurance in the US effectively chaining people to a workplace, can you even imagine how much worse that would be when you got your arms from your job?
One of the most often overlooked meta problems with the cyberpunk genre is that you pretty much have to focus on characters that are in universe upper class to have any stories that aren’t just unendingly depressing in every single detail.
Those mechanical legs and arms and spine would be company property, too. They’d expect you to return them if you quit or were fired. Either that or charge you an exorbitant amount for them.
Imagine trying to set up a surgery to remove your Amazon Basics Mecha-Arm + Alexa and get replacement arms without your work insurance.
I feel like thats where you end up with a cyberpunk version of the tale about Loki avoiding decapitation.
He lost a bet with some dwarves and he’d wagered his head. Odin then said they could have his head, but since they didn’t own his neck they couldn’t decapitate him.
“You are welcome to reclaim your Arm lift ™ however you cannot cut open my clients skin or in any way interact with their flesh, since that isn’t your property”