You come out thinking that the procedure was done to yourself after you're done reading.
What's next is a lot of people are fooled. Is it me or the machine that replaced me? Is it grandma, transmigrated into machineland afterlife, or is it just a fake? Does the fake get to vote and own property?
Worst possible scenario : Everybody is fooled. Everybody gets brainscraped. Everybody goes to immortal AI heaven. But actually nobody did. I won't give away what story goes with that spoiler (not Egan).
All that's left is machines and Amish.
> You come out thinking that the procedure was done to yourself after you're done reading.
In my interpretation, Egan is trying to say that _this is already the case_.
I understood the story as a description of epiphenomenalism, only layered with sci fi concepts to make it more straightforward to digest.