Hello, SFIA audio listeners, in this month's Nebula exclusive, Big Alien Theory,

we're asked at the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and add free, plus hours of bonus content,

check out go.nebola.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

This episode is brought to you by Brilliant.

The worst has happened, but humanity has survived.

After generations of tyranny under our machine overlords,

humanity has risen up to overthrow our own creations.

So what happens now?

One of the most commonly portrayed synergies in science fiction is between artificial intelligence and robots.

A common subtopic of that is the machines rebelling and trying to either eradicate or

rule over the very species that created them, and a popular sub-topic is humanity striking back

at their oppressor, rebelling against the machines.

The most famous such fictional uprising is the Butlerian jihad, a major historical event

of Frank Herbert's classic Dune series.

In that saga, the victorious crusaders give their prohibitions against artificial

intelligence the imperative force of a religious commandment. Thou shalt not make a machine

in the likeness of a human mind. Some of the most fascinating elements of the world of

Dune are the technologies and practices they've developed as alternatives to the deadly temptation

of AI.

We'll be looking at some of the past humanity might take if we were faced with a similar

event, along with the sorts of scenarios that might lead to such a stricter.

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