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Comment by Thrombocius

A couple of things for your consideration:

In the original 6 Frank Herbert novels, it’s not ever truly explained what problems, if any, the thinking machines were actually causing. And given much of the rest of the setting, it could have very easily been a religious movement against a useful technology that got out of hand. Like Space ISIS blowing up Petra, or a “what would happen if the Luddites won” scenario.

The Dune Encyclopedia, which was not written by him but which he said he considered canonical, says the whole thing was incited when an AI doctor flagged a Bene Gesserit’s baby for abortion due to an alleged genetic defect. The Bene Gesserit woman knew it was healthy because of her abilities, and upon investigation it was found that the hospital’s AI had been running a eugenics program. (Or something like that, it’s been forever since I’ve read this stuff.)

In either case, Herbert really implied that humans took the lead on dismantling AI, and there is never any Terminator or Matrix style machine uprising scenario.

parent Thrombocius 14 days ago

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