It'll still have steering assist, that's just "power steering".
The Magnasteer will be gone, which increases or decreases steering effort based on vehicle speed and makes it "tight and sporty" at speed, and "loose and easy to turn" in parking lots.
If you simply nip the leads on a 1k resistor and plug it into the plug (tape and insulate) the car shouldn't know the coil in the rack is gone. That's if it does any error reporting at all.