The 23rd century
The entire Solar System and surrounding interstellar neighbourhood is being transformed by an ever-expanding sphere of influence produced by massive levels of artificial intelligence. It completely dominates the Earth now, with every aspect of world affairs controlled by superintelligent entities, formed of billions of inorganic minds working in unison. These "Artilects" operate at speeds and scales that would be incomprehensible to observers from earlier centuries. Global issues that persisted for years or decades in the past can now be resolved on timescales measured in hours, minutes or even less.