Comment by fellowmartian
8 days ago
I think you’re missing the point of Dune. They had their Butlerian Jihad and won - the machines were banned. And what did it get them? Feudalism, cartels, stagnation. Does anyone seriously want to live in the Dune universe?
The problem isn’t in the thinking machines, it’s in who owns them and gets our rent. We need open source models running on dirt cheap hardware.
The point of Dune is that the worst danger are people who obey authority without questioning it.
Then wouldn't open source models running on commodity hardware be the best way to get around that? I think one of the greatest wins of the 21st century is that almost every human today has more computing power than the entire US government in the 1950s. More computer power has democratized access and ability to disperse information. There are tons of downsides to that which we're dealing with but on the net, I think it's positive.
Does it also means the US government has x1000000 more power than the one in 1950 ?
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It isn't a way around, you still obey. Only now, the authority you obey is a machine.
That's not the point of Dune. Who blindly obeyed who?
The Fremen followed a messianic figure into a galaxy-wide holy war because the Bene Gesserit seeded their culture with manufactured prophecy as a failsafe.
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... which overthrowing the machines didn't stop. People just found another authority to mindlessly obey.