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July 2024 Issue [Essay]

The Gods of Logic

Before and after artificial intelligence
AI images generated by Phillip Toledano for Harper’s Magazine © The artist/Institute. Toledano’s book Another America was published in May by L’Artiere Edizioni.

AI images generated by Phillip Toledano for Harper’s Magazine © The artist/Institute. Toledano’s book Another America was published in May by L’Artiere Edizioni. 

[Essay]

The Gods of Logic

Before and after artificial intelligence
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We will never know how many died during the Butlerian Jihad. Was it millions? Billions? Trillions, perhaps? It was a fantastic rage, a great revolt that spread like wildfire, consuming everything in its path, a chaos that engulfed generations in an orgy of destruction lasting almost a hundred years. A war with a death toll so high that it left a permanent scar on humanity’s soul. But we will never know the names of those who fought and died in it, or the immense suffering and destruction it caused, because the Butlerian Jihad, abominable and devastating as it was,…

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 is the author of When We Cease to Understand the World and The MANIAC. This essay is part of a series supported by the John Templeton Foundation.


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