# Dune *Dune* (1965) by [[Frank Herbert]] is the best-selling science-fiction novel of all time and the source of one of the AI debate's favorite reference points. A dense epic of ecology, religion, and imperial politics set on the desert planet Arrakis, it follows Paul Atreides as he becomes a messianic leader — a figure Herbert intended as a *warning* about charismatic saviors, not a celebration of one. ## The Butlerian Jihad *Dune*'s universe is shaped by a past event, the **Butlerian Jihad** — a holy war in which humanity destroyed all "thinking machines" and computers, leaving the commandment: "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." With AI banned, humans were forced to cultivate their own faculties instead. This backstory has become a stock allusion in Silicon Valley's AI-doom discourse, invoked by those who argue the safe move is *not to build* a given class of machine intelligence — a counterweight to the build-everything creed of [[Effective Accelerationism]]. ## Why it matters here The *Dune* connection to the tech elite is real but diffuse: no major founder cites it as a formative influence the way [[Elon Musk]] cites [[Isaac Asimov]], and Musk's most notable *Dune* moments are misattributed quotes. Its place in [[Science Fiction and the Tech Elite]] rests on the Butlerian Jihad as a meme in [[AI Safety]] debate. ## See also - [[Frank Herbert]] — the author - [[Science Fiction and the Tech Elite]] — the hub - [[AI Safety]] · [[Effective Accelerationism]] — the AI debate it feeds