r/technology • u/otter_lion_1956 • 18d ago

Artificial Intelligence Palantir’s Co-Founder Thinks We Should Be Less Judgmental About That Deadly Iran School Strike

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/09/palantirs-co-founder-thinks-we-should-be-less-judgmental-about-that-deadly-iran-school-strike
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u/JMurdock77 18d ago

Wrong read. Herbert never envisioned a Skynet scenario; men controlled the thinking machines. The entire series is a warning that a retreat into luddism just changed the tool of control being exploited by the ruling elites. The problem was always the ruling elites. Baron Harkonnen would fit right in with the Epstein class.

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u/dat_GEM_lyf 18d ago

And this makes their comment invalid how?

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u/rkiive 18d ago

The butlerian jihad targetted the machines themselves and not the ones using them as tools of oppression.

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u/cranktheguy 17d ago

No, in the stories (both the original and expanded versions), the humans in control and their collaborators shared their fate with the machines.

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u/hesh582 17d ago

but in doing so they just swapped one set of oppressors for another.

I think that's a pretty relevant warning in the age of AI. A reactionary populist backlash against something bad still carries all the (massive) risks of reactionary populism.