Right, but scientific research or any other work is predicated on the idea that a human can make a meaningful contribution. The premise in the Culture is that AIs are vastly superior to human intellect, and so it’s not really possible for a human to do something that an AI can’t do better and faster. I suppose it could be a like a hobby where you try to understand concepts for your own personal interest. It would be akin to people making artisanal crafts for things that can be produced industrially.

One way to address the problem would be transhumanism where people become uplifted to the same intellectual level as machines. However, that creates the obvious problem of writing a story about characters who are no longer human or relatable to us. In fact, my one big criticism of the series would be that the Minds that are supposed to be intellectually superior to humans behave no different from humans. There is also the same problem with all the aliens effectively having human style intellect.

I also agree with the war being a choice, although unlike US, the Culture is not the instigator of the war. Yet, it does have the whole USian superiority vibe and the way Culture sees itself is very much the way US does today. I also prefer the types of societies envisioned in Strugacky’s novels.

And I definitely don’t mind criticizing the series. I thought it had some good ideas, but it’s got plenty of flaws as well.

Another couple of series dealing with similar themes that I thought was better done are the Nanotech Succession and the Inverted Frontier. Both take place in the same universe and explore a post scarcity transhumanist society. I’d say the vision there is much closer to the old Soviet sci-fi.