Frank Herbert's Dune Banned Thinking Machines for 10,000 Years
Butlerian Jihad
The Butlerian Jihad, or Great Revolt, was a crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots that ran from 201 B.G. to 108 B.G. in the Dune universe. After two generations of violence, humanity destroyed all intelligent machines and adopted the Orange Catholic Bible's commandment: "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." Even simple calculators were banned on pain of death, a gap that gave rise to the Mentat order, the Bene Gesserit, and the Spacing Guild.
We must negate the machines-that-think. Humans must set their own guidelines. This is not something machines can do. Reasoning depends upon programming, not on hardware, and we are the ultimate program!
- twowaway
The best treatment of AI in the Dune universe I ever found, by far, is by Timothy O'Reilly (yes, that O'Reilly):
- tarpitt
My favorite quote from dune:
Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.
- cautiouscat
What I find interesting about thinking machines in Dune, is that in a lot of sci-fi the artificial intelligence itself is what decides to destroy humanity. In Dune, humans in charge of the machines (technocrats) are the ones that come close to destroying humanity. The Jihad was a fight against them, as much as it was against the machines themselves.
So, in a way, we're more likely to see the Dune version of "machines taking over the world/universe" than say, Terminator's even though many joke about ChatGPT/Claude being Skynet.
- antihipocrat
At the end of the page is this paragraph:
Another, more subtle justification for the Butlerian Jihad is also found in Frank Herbert's original novels, specifically Heidegger's thesis that the use of technology trains humans to think like machines. The problem is that machines are deterministic; thus, training people to be machines is self-limiting.
I wonder whether Heidegger would consider the probabilistic nature of LLMs as having a positive effect on human thought.
- bumbledraven
Herbert seemed to think that to be human is to be essentially 'open-ended', capable of undiscovered, indeterminate evolution, both personally and as a species.
Indeed.
- randomImmigrant
I do wonder where the evolution of the human brain goes, with the widespread use of AI.
The early evidence isn’t good, but I do believe with deliberate and thoughtful training our brains our capable of much more than we currently give them credit for.
- ks2048
In the book - is it men vs machines? Because it’s pretty clear in our world it will be men+machines vs men(probably also + some machines)
- mentalgear
> This propelled the creators of these machines into a new technocratic class, effectively controlling the worlds of the common people.
The techno-fascists of today. We are already there.
Also, quoting the first Dune novel:
> Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.