[int_19h]

That's one of the possibilities, but if we're talking about those kinds of hypotheticals, allow me another one. If you recall, one of the themes of the later Dune books was that humanity was fleeing from the frontiers (The Scattering) back into the heartland from some unknown but extremely powerful enemy. Perhaps those were simply the neighboring species who did not have a Butlerian Jihad of their own?

[GeoAtreides]

It wasn't the whole humanity fleeing back, it was just the HM, their lackeys and possible their hunters.

[ratherbefuddled]

They were fleeing AI.

[int_19h]

I don't recall anything indicating that in Frank Herbert's original series. And Brian Herbert's "Omnius" nonsense seems to have very little to do with what Frank actually had in mind wrt Butlerian Jihad etc, so I don't consider it canonical.

[disgruntledphd2]

Book 4, Sonia's vision with Leto strongly implies that the problem is the machines.

Agreed that the endings done by others were incredibly bad.

[int_19h]

It describes humans hiding from "seeker machines", which does indeed imply some kind of AI. But whether that AI is the enemy or merely one of its tools is left unclear.

[disgruntledphd2]

Yeah fair, when I re-read it after reading the (terrible) Anderson sequels, I was just surprised that the foreshadowing was in the originals.