Thinking Machines (Dune) - Legends of Dune

Chronicling the Butlerian Jihad, the Legends of Dune series (2002–2004) by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson establishes that the thinking machines are a host of destructive robots led by Omnius, a sentient computer network. A thousand years before the Jihad, a group of twenty dissident humans had used thinking machines to enslave the rest of mankind, and then converted themselves into weaponized human-machine hybrids called cymeks. Essentially immortal and unstoppable, they had become known as the Titans, but after a century had been overthrown themselves by Omnius and made his servants. Mankind suffers under thinking machine oppression for another 900 years, before the murder of young Manion Butler at the hands of the independent robot Erasmus incites the Butlerian Jihad. The last remaining free humans, unified under the League of Nobles, fight for a century before finally defeating the machines in the Battle of Corrin.