‘Dune’ tried to warn us against AI

Even the biggest fans of Dune know that Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction epic quickly turns fantastical. Giant underground sandworms measuring 1,500 feet long; a narcotic that powers interstellar travel and alters a user’s perception of space-time; a mystical cabal of eugenic witches – the list goes on. But there is at least one story in the sprawling series that increasingly feels like a premonition rather than a plot point: the Butlerian Jihad.

Taking place well before the events of Dune In itself, the Butlerian Jihad was an interplanetary revolt that lasted almost a century and saw humanity rush to destroy all of its advanced computers, artificial intelligence systems and other “thinking machines”. The underlying cause, however, was not that sentient robots were trying to eradicate humans. Instead, our species’ over-reliance on these programs generated a superior ruling class of technocrats who quickly presided over all aspects of society. It wasn’t so much that humanity was afraid of AI, but rather of the people who designed and controlled it. The Butlerian Jihad ultimately resulted in the annihilation of all thinking machines, as well as the total banning of all new robotic creation.

“Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human spirit,” reads one of the following in-universe religious texts.

DuneThe author did not necessarily intend the Butlerian Jihad to be an ominous warning. If anything, it was a clever way to avoid dealing with far-future AI concepts and focus on Herbert’s interests in power dynamics, gender, and societal structures. Despite everything, it is difficult not to get a little strangely by a passage of Dune which is once again making the rounds on social networks.

“Once men entrusted their thoughts to machines in the hope that it would liberate them. But this only allowed other men with machines to enslave them,” a character explains to protagonist Paul Atreides at the beginning of the first novel.

It remains to be seen whether or not life imitates art. That said, there’s no reason not to mock the current generation of so-called AI in the meantime:

And even if subjugation isn’t an option, growing evidence suggests that too much time spent with “thinking machines” is already starting to affect our own cognitive abilities.

The article “Dune” Tried to Warn Us About AI appeared first on Popular Science.