The Culture is what I'd want to happen, the Polity (from Neal Asher) is closer to what I'd expect to happen.

Both are good series if you haven't read one or the other (or either) though I'd say Banks was the better writer, Asher world builds better than anyone I can think of in contemporary science fiction though, Spatterjay is a brilliantly realised genuinely alien feeling world and the Prador are superb "villains" (from a human perspective, totally rational from their own).

I still think Iain Banks was the best sf writer ever to have existed.

The Player of Games is an easy read if anyone wants to try him for the first time.

I still really enjoy the science fiction of that age. It's fun to read stories set in a universe where computers basically never came into existence. It's really hard for anyone to write stories like that now, so, kind of like analogy to "low-background steel" [1] that has been used recently of the pre-AI world, there's a way in which no more of this sort of story can be produced anymore, or at least, very little. Fortunately there's already more than you can read.

But it is also funny to read about "robots" in a world where computers are still blinking lights and punchcards, if they exist at all. Some of Asimov's work took it to the logical, yet still absurd, conclusion - computers are still blinking lights and punchcards but hyperadvanced and very massive robotic positronic brains are built to run the entire world at once... basically the robots become so advanced that their brains are repurposed as computers. Very amusing in its own way.

Fallout is probably the biggest example of this I can think of. Complete with the robots that are absurdly more capable than the computer hardware seems to be, and the Yes Man who at least aspires to run his part of the world.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

I recall reading that some thought that simple electrical signals could not fully explain our nervous system and there may be some quantum effects in the mix.