4 ms·
I always thought Dune’s Butlerian Jihad was one of the more fantastical elements of the story, but now it’s probably one of the more realistic.
by jl6 3y ago
I always thought Dune’s Butlerian Jihad was one of the more fantastical elements of the story, but now it’s probably one of the more realistic.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y agoYou have to read the text carefully: "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." Emphasis added. Not an AI Skynet takeover, but a tech-oligarch takeover. It's increasingly not fictional.
- rcarmo 3y agoYep. The Butlerian Jihad as depicted in post-Dune books (namely Frank Herbert's son's) was more dystopian, but far less insightful. Of course, we're probably safe while these things lack agency (although the ability of agency and hype human VCs already generate behind some of the current AI landscape can be pretty scary).
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago> as depicted in post-Dune books (namely Frank Herbert's son's) You're mistaken, there are only 6 Dune books, all by Frank Herbert himself. I'm joking, but not joking.
- rcarmo 3y agoI see what you did there. Hence my use of "post".
- saati 3y agoThere is the Encyclopedia too.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y agoMy apologies, that should read "there are only 6 Dune novels" to be pedantic.
- throwawaaarrgh 3y agoWhat would you consider agency? The machines already decide for themselves what something is or isn't, and then tell a human, who might believe it or not. It's not really different than if a human made something up and told their superior. Here's a case where we often just trust the machine, and how that ends up going: https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-algorithm-technology-police-crime-7e3345485aa668c97606d4b54f9b6220 https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-algorithm...
- rcarmo 3y agoThe machines do not currently go off on their own and search for stuff. Humans ask them to, explicitly or not. There are no real independent AI agents out there right now (or if there are, well, maybe they're lurking in this thread. Douglas would have loved that).
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago> The machines already decide for themselves what something is or isn't, if making choices (badly) is agency, then a random number generator has agency.
- marcosdumay 3y agoFollowing the orders of their powerful master against you does not require agency at all. LLMs are very transparent, what makes them safe, but other forms of AI are already being used to capture the public's mind.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y agoThe prohibition after the Butlerian Jihad was "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." Emphasis added. Not "Thou shalt not make a machine mind". You have to read the text carefully. A portrait of a person is a likeness of a person; but is not a person or even on the way to being one. Even a cartoon can contain a "likeness" if you recognise the person parodied in it. I do not regard chatGPT and LLMs as "having a mind" at all or even being on the way to having one. But a likeness, an imitation, a mockery, a parody of a mind, yes that fits.
- 6510 3y agothe king is dead, long live the king?