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Comment by accidentallfact | Hacker News Reader

The point of Dune is that the worst danger are people who obey authority without questioning it.

Then wouldn't open source models running on commodity hardware be the best way to get around that? I think one of the greatest wins of the 21st century is that almost every human today has more computing power than the entire US government in the 1950s. More computer power has democratized access and ability to disperse information. There are tons of downsides to that which we're dealing with but on the net, I think it's positive.

It isn't a way around, you still obey. Only now, the authority you obey is a machine.

Does it also means the US government has x1000000 more power than the one in 1950 ?

speaking strictly from an energy standpoint (power grid, megatons of warheads, etc).. it's probably close to that number.

That's not the point of Dune. Who blindly obeyed who?

The Fremen followed a messianic figure into a galaxy-wide holy war because the Bene Gesserit seeded their culture with manufactured prophecy as a failsafe.

“Followed”

Just woke up after 80 years of abuse by Landsraad/CHOAM, possibly centuries of persecution before that, at least decades of religious conditioning by Bene Gesserit, and decided to “follow” messianic figure.

Totally same point as humans using LLMs to smoothen their brain.

... which overthrowing the machines didn't stop. People just found another authority to mindlessly obey.

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