David Bremner started reading Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1) by Iain M. Banks
Consider Phlebas, first published in 1987, is a space opera novel by Scottish writer Iain …
Banks does like to open with a torture scene, doesn't he?
Anyway the grand theme is apparently the advisability of turning things over to benign machines to run things. That does seem rather hypothetical at the moment.