There are worse fates than extinction, for example living forever, for I have no mouth and I must scream

I dunno, being a Culture Mind sounds pretty damn good. Or even just a death-optional citizen in the Culture.

The Culture isn’t perfect but it seems like the best possible outcome. I think I’d want to be a fast picket and hang out with Special Circumstances.

Agreed. Ellison’s path to that future went through AI.

Is it really hard for you to imagine that enshrining a cartel and wedding the government to it, centralizing AI even more than it already is, is actually the path that leads to the doomsday scenario you imagine?