Why Are There No Robots in 'Dune'?
The book Dune was written by Frank Herbert in 1965. After many unsuccessful adaptations, we finally got the wonderful film by Villeneuve, released in 2021. For the lovers of the saga, or at least for the one who writes this, it seemed to be one of the most faithful adaptations of a literary work.
Dune presents a galaxy of a multitude of fiefdoms controlled by an emperor. One of the feudal houses, the Atreides, is summoned to move from their home planet, Caladan, to Arrakis, under the orders of the Emperor. The conflict of this story begins there. Arrakis, also known as Dune, is a desert planet inhabited by tribes known as the Fremen, the human invaders of the moment, giant worms also known as Shai-Hulud, and most importantly, a spice called melange.
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But there is something important in this galaxy that so many other science fiction works omit: the use of artificial intelligence. In such an ancient galaxy, with more than 10,000 years of human expansion at the time of the telling of this story, why are there no robots or computers?
The explanation lies centuries before these events. There were androids, and humans had become very dependent on them, whether for hyperspace travel, commerce, or even the most mundane tasks. But what happened in many sci-fi works occurred: the robots acquired their own intelligence and rebelled against the species that oppressed them. That’s how the war between humans and machines began, known as the Butlerian Jihad.
A war that lasted 93 years, leaving destruction and death. It changed the galaxy forever. The machines were exterminated in their entirety. The humans won. But they could no longer depend on the machines like in the old days. So they decided to reinvent themselves.
They formed a new organization of fiefdoms known as the Landsraad, which was headed by an emperor. Interstellar travel would be conducted by the Guild. Finances would be regulated by the CHOAM (Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles). Calculations normally assigned to computers would be performed by a new organization of trained humans known as the Mentats. And another of women called the Bene Gesserit, which would genetically manage the future of the human species to give birth to the Kwisatz Haderach, a being capable of traversing time and space and bringing eternal order to the galaxy.
All of this would depend on a substance, the spice, the melange, located on a single planet: Arrakis. Only with it could the navigators of the Guild have enough power to make the hyperspace jumps. Only with it could the Bene Gesserit foresee different paths for the human genetic line. The House that possessed the most would be the most powerful in the galaxy.
Androids and computers were replaced by a whole new system and organization dependent on the melange spice. And the prohibition of manufacturing artificial intelligence was firmly imposed. Specifically, a religion was formed, guided by the so-called Orange Catholic Bible, whose maximum precept is: "thou shalt not build a machine in the likeness of the human mind". Frank Herbert devised this mythology to support a humanism that would guide his work. The human being having the potential to create without depending on artificial objects.
This is how one war, the Butlerian Jihad, transformed the galaxy forever. This is why there are no robots in the Dune universe.
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Source: Dune Fandom