On living through *Dune*

17 hours ago by perviouslyiner to c/showerthoughts

Shower thought: too many of these predictions are coming true at the same time!

Looking at the AI news, how long before something happens that we collectively say "you will not create a machine that thinks like a human"?
Watching the events with Iran and oil through the strait of Hormuz is probably the clearest reminder ever that whoever is able to destroy something is able to control it.
Trying to explain to someone how practically to use an AI code assistant, I might provisionally describe it as "like talking to a child who knows everything. Their reasoning is basic but their brain contains all knowledge of history".

Should the next Claude be called Alia?

cybervseas 15 points 17 hours ago

Delusions of grandeur already abound in AI CEOs. See: naming the company Palantir.

Hope they keep scifi I like out of their slop machines.

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perviouslyiner 5 points 17 hours ago

Asking AI to write code certainly gives off vibes of Asimov's robots - it can't be long before no human is able to write the next generation of code.

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cybervseas 2 points 17 hours ago

I use these platforms for codegen on a number of personal projects where api endpoints are defined and writing all the glue code is a chore. My working thesis is these systems help if you're reinventing the wheel. But if you're making something that's new computer science you are going to have to think and do it yourself.

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Grail 2 points 8 hours ago

Elon named some of his rockets after Culture ships.

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Cocodapuf 2 points 5 hours ago

Right. Technically not the rockets, but the landing barges, Of Course I Still Love You and Just Read The Instructions.

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Vince 6 points 17 hours ago

Was Alia also a mentat? I thought she was awakened abomination

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shittydwarf 4 points 17 hours ago

She was awakened as a fetus with all of the collective knowledge of the Reverend mothers before her, a bit different than the mentats

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DjangoFett 3 points 15 hours ago

She had roughly six months of consciousness in which she swam through the lifetimes and memories of a huge number of her ancestors with nobody to speak to except them and her mother through a quasi-telepathic link.

The link is actually more temporal than telepathic as i understand it because both Reverend Mother Gaius Mohaim and Alia both deny telepathy but the line is "She is in my mind where she should not be." She also shortly after describes to Paul that she is sending him a message by "writing it on the future stream of time for [him] to find."

So she wasn't a mentat, but was basically born as a fully realized Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother which includes incredible mental discipline alongside Prana Bindu techniques; while not capable of the phenomenal computations a Mentat is, they can still assimilate and process bare scraps of information into complete pictures significantly quicker than the average homo sapien.

I finished reading the first book again only yesterday, so this is wildly fresh to me.

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Vince 1 point 14 hours ago

That's roughly what I remember, just wondering why OP was suggesting using her name and questioning if I was remembering incorrectly, thanks for the very thorough response

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ArgumentativeMonotheist 2 points 14 hours ago

No, Paul was and Leto II was one also, I guess, because of his "connection" to Paul and being able to access/live through his memories.

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i_stole_ur_taco 4 points 17 hours ago

I’ve been building a DIY home assistant in my spare time and have been looking for a good wake word to use. Alia is great!

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FriendOfDeSoto 4 points 15 hours ago

Are we moving towards an AI jihad? A jihaid, if you will.

Hormuz doesn't fit in the Dune: Planet Earth narrative for me. We should stop using oil for the sake of the climate yet we don't. We don't have to go through that strait with so much trade. We just don't want to take the detour and price increases. The Dune universe depends on the spice for navigation and I think there isn't another source. We are still so dependent on oil out of habit and/or stupidity. The mullahs really aren't the freemen. They are more of a side arm of the Harkonen clan that was provoked by the thoughtless action of the emperor's real estate developer triggering their typical c@![ish behaviour.

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ArgumentativeMonotheist 2 points 14 hours ago

"Thinking machines" or not, the problem in our universe and Dune's (IIRC) is/was powerful people using these tools to subjugate others, not that they went full Matrix. I think the 6th book might hint at this possible future, as well as God Emperor (my memory fails me though, but Leto II is trying to prevent total human extermination through almost omniscient surveillance and control, which could point towards AI), but the main problem is the same as it was so idk if we're living through Dune or just the human experience. 🙃

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