Enslaved

I reread some parts of Dune by Frank Herbert not too long ago. The novel was hugely formative for me when I was young. I think I read it some time in the 70s, probably around '74.

The most famous line from the novel is the "Fear is the mind killer" bit when Paul is being tested by the Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit, but right after that, after Paul has passed the test, is this...

The reverend mother tells him:
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

This message has already become cliche in our present reality and even becomes a convenient totem to blame for our current enslavement.

I'm not apologizing for AI in any way, but I've been thinking about how there's another, much older, thing than AI that accomplishes a similar thing. Lying.

With lying you don't have to have all the information, you just have to prevent others from accessing what information does exist. If no one else can access real and true information, you have the opportunity to present them with a reality that enslaves them all the same.

Remember, before AI exploded into the realm of usability by regular folk (only two and a half years ago!!!) we were already being enslaved by selfish men who became wealthy by lying to us.