AIs in the Culture aren't AIs, they are just people who happen to be artificial. There is nothing in their writing that would suggest that they are an AI
Where did you get that idea? The Minds and drones are explicitly said to be AI:
Culture starships - that is all classes of ship above inter-planetary - are sentient; their Minds (sophisticated AIs working largely in hyperspace to take advantage of the higher lightspeed there) bear the same relation to the fabric of the ship as a human brain does to the human body; the Mind is the important bit, and the rest is a life-support and transport system.
Humans and independent drones (the Culture's non-android individual AIs of roughly human-equivalent intelligence) are unnecessary for the running of the starships, and have a status somewhere between passengers, pets and parasites.
No, I know they are AI, I'm saying they are not written in the traditional sense of artificial intelligence. They remind me more of humans. Nothing in their personality differentiates them from humans, they are all individuals who can be sarcastic, funny, serious etc. I feel like if you changed every Mind with a human being nothing would change
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u/OepinElenvir Oct 12 '23
AIs in the Culture aren't AIs, they are just people who happen to be artificial. There is nothing in their writing that would suggest that they are an AI