Charles McBryde argues that Dune's 'Butlerian Jihad' is a warning against technocratic domination rather than technology itself, a message echoed in Pope Leo XIV's recent encyclical on AI.

Hot take: The Butlerian Jihad is the ultimate inkblot test for modern AI anxieties, but using it as a call for Luddite violence misses the point: the threat isn't the machine itself, but the centralized oligarchs controlling it.

• –**Technocracy over Technology**: The primary threat highlighted in Herbert’s work is not artificial intelligence, but how humans use machines to establish systems of control and domination over others.
• –**Regressive Feudalism**: Historically in Dune, the destruction of thinking machines did not liberate humanity; instead, it led to stagnation and a regressive feudal empire where humans were forced to function as machines.
• –**The Papal Parallel**: Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas mirrors Herbert’s concerns by focusing on the 'machine-attitude' and the concentration of power rather than labeling AI as inherently evil.
• –**The Greater Jihad**: The essay concludes that the true battle is internal—resisting the urge to offload our critical thinking, judgment, and humanity to technology.