How does it work?
Artificial intelligence is an astonishing technology. Machinery thinking for itself.
A sapient AI has a human mind laced to machinery. Thus any AI can only be human + cybernetics. A "full" AI is someone whose brain has been replaced entirely (or very nearly so) with cybernetics.
Some full AIs have been made from young ones who couldn't possibly have given an ounce of consent for any of this, and yes, most people regard this as sorely creepy.
Children's lives are still saved with cybernetics! However, full conversion to being an AI is avoided outsideof the rare case that someone must have this to live, as children cannot give full consent. Even then, the cybernetics almost always can be and thus are replaced with regrown tissues. There are only a few hundred thousand full AIs that were converted as children that are known among the trillions of lives across the history of the Planetary Coalition.
Some thought (some still think!) that this kind of approach (this making non-consenting people endure this conversion) was necessary to survive as a population. There are scientists infamous for this idea. (That infamy also comes, I suspect, from how these AI, these people, are born. This method has them grown from cloned and cybernetic elements in medical tanks, and "asleep" until of adult maturity. That's an idea that's about as cuddly as a spiked mace.)
Lacing, Unlacing, and Relacing
Any being has a self, which exists outside of our perception. The debates still go on about when the self (and the spirit) is connected to the body, but it is clearly there by someone's birth. The connection of the self is called lacing.
Some parts of the self can get partially disconnected from the body without the person dying, and this is called unlacing. This can happen during physical or magical attacks. (Not every injury causes unlacing; many nasty looking injuries don't.)
Any body part can be partially unlaced, or fully unlaced. Whether a person dies as a result of this depends on what was unlaced, how fully it was unlaced, and whether or not someone needs that body part to live. Reattaching that unlaced part of the self is called relacing, and is done by trained medic-telepaths.
The natural healing abilities of the human body mean that relacing can happen, has happened, and still happens without the intervention of any medic-telepath. Injury recovery without the aid of relacing can be more dangerous. Also, the limitations of such can leave someone with more life-altering conditions or situations than otherwise.
A couple of examples:
Got your entire leg unlaced? That's easy enough to fix up, and some folks don't even care about that getting relaced, as it's not that important to them.
Got your heart or brain partially or fully unlaced? At best, that's a bad day. At the most severe, even a highly skiiled medic-telepath isn't going to be able to relace you to anything.
(Mis)Adventures in Becoming an AI
Okay so, what can be done when someone gets devastating brain injuries?
Well, there's multiple options to fix it.
Cybernetics
The first option is cybernetics. Cybernetics are ready faster, due to being able to build some of it in advance. The biggest downside is the pain that happens when first adjusting to the machinery (immune systems can be ~super fun~).
Someone might also feel inhuman (for a little bit) as well, but most people that have been through this remember the pain as being the worst part.
Most people get squicked out by the idea of their brains being mechanical, despite the wide appreciation of cybernetics overall. (This squickiness extends to hearts also. I suspect that's because hearts and heads have been seen as the seats of the self across galactic history.)
It is always used if someone is in mortal danger as a result of injuries, given the speed at which it can be ready.
If a person is truly upset later about the technological replacements, they can request to have the machinery replaced with grown tissues.
This can't always be done, though; full control of cybernetic limbs requires some cybernetic implantation, for instance.
There are also injury situations that mean that even trying to replace the machinery is too risky, and thus unwise.
Ethically speaking, a doctor, team of doctors, or an entire facility, might not agree to take the risk inherent in switching these out. And even if a doctor, team, or facility agrees to take on the risk, they will inform their patient of all of these risks in such a situation. Also, they wil stop the procedure if it shows itself to be an unsurvivable situation. No ethical medical provider wants to kill the patient, after all.
(Yes, there are unethical medical providers around. No, I don't really want to meet any, fascinating though they may be.)
Lab-Grown Tissues
The second option is to regrow injured tissues. This takes longer because very little can be grown in advance. The advantage here is that since it's really your brain, your body doesn't instantly have a giant cow courtesy of the immune system.
Relacing
Once you choose, a mage with the proper affinity and training can lace your mind back to whichever method you choose to replace the injured/lost tissues.
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