GoKawiilMuad’Dib. Photo by Jack Davison
A beginning is a very delicate time.
Last month, 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama drove to the San Francisco residence of OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman and hurled a Molotov cocktail at its gate. Hours later, he arrived at OpenAI’s headquarters and attempted to force an entrance. Following his arrest, information about Moreno-Gama began to circulate online, including his social media accounts.
Evidence emerged that he had participated in multiple anti-AI forums, interfacing with groups such as PauseAI and Stop AI. These groups emphasized that they advocate nonviolence and distanced themselves from the attack.
His parents described him as being in the throes of a mental health crisis, and the incident quickly exited the news cycle. But what drew less general attention was something that immediately piqued the curiosity of a lot of nerds: his Discord username. His handle was ‘Butlerian Jihadist.’
When I read this detail, tucked away near the end of a Guardian article, I winced to see another of my predictions come true; that the ‘Butlerian Jihad’ would soon enter public life not as mere literary metaphor, but as a kind of political vocabulary, one destined to spiral into paranoia and violence.
The first blow in the Butlerian Jihad had been struck. And it came before the Holy War had even been declared.
What is the ‘Butlerian Jihad?’
I originally entitled this essay Who Will Declare The Butlerian Jihad? but then, well, someone did.
And it just so happened to be the fucking Pope.
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