Comment by duskwuff
3 days ago
It's left fairly ambiguous by Frank Herbert's books. The Jihad is implied to have taken place over ten thousand years before the beginning of Dune - it's ancient history to everyone involved*, so it's only natural that the details are a little hazy.
*: except Leto II, and he doesn't say much about it
Interesting to note that despite the epochal changes Leto II wrought on human society in service of the “Golden Path”, he retained the Butlerian proscription against computers—despite his personal interest in & use of Ixian devices.
(This may have been to postpone or prevent the breaking of the Spice/Guild monopoly on interstellar travel by the Ixians.)
Leto II had visions of AI-driven Ixian hunter-killers annihilating all human life in the universe. That probably had something to do with it.
After the Scattering and the fulfillment of his eugenics program with the Siona gene, he no longer cares, because it is no longer possible for even AI to eradicate humanity.
His target was removal of prescience - which would have allowed that, AI or no AI.
In fact he also explicitly prepared a renewal of computing and thinking machines in order to break free from spacing guild
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