Consider Phlebas: A Culture Novel

by Iain M. Banks

The Culture was every single individual human and machine in it, not one thing. Just as it could not imprison itself with laws, impoverish itself with money or misguide itself with leaders, so it would not misrepresent itself with signs.

“Enough. Let’s do it now.” “Do what?” “Take your name.” “I—” And they reached together into his skull and took his name. So he screamed.

The only desire the Culture could not satisfy from within itself was one common to both the descendants of its original human stock and the machines they had (at however great a remove) brought into being: the urge not to feel useless.