I'm always happy to field questions:

[@Sypherkhode822] - The easy answer is that tincts don't understand technology, they understand maintenance. It's a body of knowledge built up from observing the previous generation, staring at illustrated manuals they can't really read anymore and disassembling any non-functional tools they come across for spare parts. Imagine it like rediscovering magic in a fantasy setting, they don't know WHY most things work, just that the little rituals they've preserved over the years keep it working.

They're getting worse at keeping their settlements running with each year, not better. A combination of progressively more degraded machinery and that semi-literate people are rarer than albinos. Importantly critical maintenance is the domain of their Doyans, whom in turn teach other members of the community enough to keep a settlement from total collapse, meaning most are as unskilled as assembly line workers. (trained in doing just one thing adequately)

To go into a little more [hider=depth]

Let's tackle the thought of replacing a human brain with an artificial one. The main problem with this being that even a successful installation kills the patient (You are your brain) and replaces it with at best a simulation of his/herself. Even if it were only a small module it would either:
A) Require the excision of a large portion of grey matter to fit comfortably within the skull
B) Be an external deuteromind of sorts, likely placed lower on the spine than the brain proper as to intercept signals and supersede orders going to and from the head. I describe it thus due to my next point--

The A.I. and the device would have to be purpose built for the task of commandeering the human body. While certainly possible there's little reason for something like this to be left behind on a deep space mining colony and even less for it to contain an A.I. capable of free will. On that point--

A.I.s don't--and as scientists tend to be good at their jobs in this setting--are by very design incapable of achieving free will. It is flatly impossible. The sort of machine intelligences that exceed the mental faculties of their creators are:
A) Too large to cram inside a human body to begin with
B) The result of throwing large amounts of money and human effort at the wall. Like putting out a new OS. So it's not feasible that a rogue element of the development staff could sabotage his co-workers to the extent of making an unbound A.I. Even if they did, these things go through quality assurance first.

Finally you wouldn't be able to preform neurosurgery on yourself--nor would there be anyone on the planet capable of the task. The initial years were basically "the Lord of the Flies - bombed out mining colony edition"

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Unrelated note: I'm happy the fourth school of cognoscenti even if I'm stumped as to what to call them. I'll likely be added an incomplete section on them to the main post soonish.