It's a different way of doing the same. You have biological creatures inside a protected atmosphere that gather nutrientes from plants, with a transport system, etc. It's pretty much today's society but more fancy and jetsonian.

If AGI quicks in, society itself and the concept of "living being" may just flip completely.

Why 8 billion people? Why not a hive mind of computación substrate?

Why a hive mind? One entity alone maybe, and so on.

People usually thinks of something like what we have right now, but way more advanced. I think reality is going to spin the bottle and get really weird.