> I don’t see the similarity? It’s a dystopia run by a maniacal computer and everyone is forced to live underground until the machine collapses for some reason?

I read that same summary. The similarity is pretty clear: the first step was letting a machine take over all economic and intellectual functions, leaving humanity useless and dependent it.

We're talking about taking that step too.

The question, of course, is why should it inevitably lead to that kind of world, rather than The Culture? Or, to give a more realistic and likely example, something like the Colligatarch from Alan Dean Foster's "The I Inside".

That’s a pretty shallow resemblance.