What Happens When AI Makes It Possible To Build A New Civilization? |
What Happens When AI Makes It Possible To Build A New Civilization?
Imagine a civilization where nobody has to convince anybody else how society should work.
Kyle McClay | November 7, 2026
Iain M. Banks imagined a civilization where abundance made ideological conformity unnecessary. Artificial intelligence could bring us closer to that possibility than most people realize.
Imagine a civilization where nobody has to convince anybody else how society should work.
Not because everyone agrees. Not because politics has disappeared. But because disagreement no longer requires a winner and a loser.
That is one of the fascinating ideas buried inside Iain M. Banks’s Culture novels.
The Culture is a civilization of extraordinary abundance, where artificial intelligence has advanced to the point that material scarcity is largely irrelevant. Its enormous General Systems Vehicles (GSVs) function almost like independent, traveling civilizations.
Some ships develop particular cultures, philosophies, and lifestyles. One might embrace communal living, another religious orthodoxy, another hedonism, and another an almost permanent vacation.
Citizens can move between them.
The remarkable thing isn’t that everyone agrees on how to live. It’s that nobody needs everyone else to agree.
Throughout human history, political conflict has been driven partly by scarcity. Land, resources, political power, and institutions are limited. When one group controls the government, another often loses the ability to pursue its preferred vision of society.
Politics consequently becomes a struggle for control.
Democracy........