- An individual, because it is a conglomeration of mostly independent entities working both alone and together in a mostly deterministic fashion. The entire collective is viewed as a cohesive "system" with a purpose by those outside of it, even IF that singular identity is actually an illusion produced by nothing more than the emergent properties of a bunch of individual parts working together according to predefined rules. (Example: an individual computer program)
- A community, because as we build systems on top of systems, each of which is semi- or fully-autonomous, and each interacting with other systems in a sense of rational self-interest (even if that self-interest is itself nothing but an emergent illusion), the whole collection of these systems begins to exhibit the properties usually reserved for human communities. (Examples: a smartphone with its OS and all apps working together; an enterprise-wide IT infrastructure; the internet)
- Neither, because (as some might argue), no computer system at any level (from CPU microcode to applications to the entire internet) actually exhibits the true self-directed nature of complex biological entities.*
* I don't actually believe this, if only because humans usually provide that "random self-direction" by proxy.
It is analogous to a community because you often have several different parts of the program working together to achieve a common goal (although I would consider it closer to a tribe than a community), it is an individual because it works with one mind and it is neither because it is a computer program, not human.
