[tialaramex]

In Iain M Banks' Culture novels there's a ship (the General Systems Vehicle "Grey Area", but most often called "Meatfucker" by other ships) which has converted its interior into a museum of torture devices. Lots of stuff we'd recognise, but one we wouldn't - a Neural Lace. Almost all Culture citizens have one, it's typically implanted in early adulthood and grows next to your brain. A Culture Citizen touring the museum is confused, why does the Grey Area have a Neural Lace ?

Well of course the device doesn't have to be programmed to be controlled by the host, does it ? Torture entirely by manipulating the compute substrate your mind runs on would be effective† and yet very easy to do... so this is in fact just another torture device.

† Effective in the sense that it would inflict needless misery on people, that's what torture is actually for, it's not an effective interrogation strategy and never has been.