A Gift from the Culture
"A Gift from the Culture", published in 1987, is a short work of space opera, by the Scottish science fiction author Iain M. Banks. The story is an early venture into the "complex and unusual and very distant" setting of the Culture, which Banks would further develop through various of full length novels, stories, and his essay "A Few Notes on the Culture".
Artificial intelligence in fiction
Optimistic visions of the future of artificial intelligence are possible in science fiction. One of the best-known is Iain Banks's "Culture" series of novels, which portray a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoids, aliens, and advanced beings with artificial intelligence living in socialist habitats across the Milky Way.