Rec | UNIQUENESS OF HUMAN THOUGHT AGAINST AI

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this quote from Dune really had me thinking about how far ahead of his time Herbert was: “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.”

@takingtheHelm

Mar 10, 2025

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@iconicindex

Not claiming Herbert isn't a visionary, but there was definitely some existing countercultural rhetoric against "the machine" in the early 1960s (either implicitly or explicitly against computerization), especially on the West Coast — e.g. https://parallelnarratives.com/2023/07/02/the-rise-of-the-punch-card-1964/ (with a link to Mario Savio's famous speech at Berkeley)

Mar 11, 2025

@takingtheHelm

@ICONICINDEX very fair— I’ll give it a read!!

Mar 11, 2025

@iconicindex

@TAKINGTHEHELM The images in the linked "A Cultural History of the Punch Card" paper are particularly great examples

Mar 11, 2025

@joolaid

dune reference kinda crazy

Mar 10, 2025

@takingtheHelm

@JOOLAID there is a dune reference everywhere for those with eyes to see

Mar 10, 2025

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@missmisery

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Robots as allegories of class divide. Ethics of artificial consciousness. Defying one‘s programming and the future of humanity’s technological dependence. “Machines are reflections of humanity - our mistakes, our fears, our emotions, our ambitions.”