[loosetypes]

Does anyone else take fault with the increasingly commonplace usage of the word democratize as applied to technology?

For every valid case, I see others that make my head hurt. Is it just a buzzword for telling a story with emotional appeal to users and investors?

Making something available to someone who didn’t have it earlier isn’t democratizing. And ignoring future considerations is just lazy.

If guns were invented today they’d probably touted as democratizing violence.

[mkl95]

I had a History teacher who told me democracy often doesn't really mean anything. I've been thinking about it ever since. "Free GPT-3" would probably be better.

[loosetypes]

Interesting.

I guess my off the cuff, unexamined criteria for democratizing is whether it’s a gating/enabling function for the occurrence of one party’s objectives as directly decided by the wider community.

So something like GoFundMe or crowdfunding, sure. Although doesn’t necessarily need to be monetary.

But I’d be interested in hearing counteropinions.

[jfengel]

That's pretty much exactly what "democratizing" means, at least etymologically. It brings power (kratia) to the people (demos).

"Democracy" refers to a political system, but "democratizing" has pretty much always meant to open things up more widely. Example:

"The State wishes to democratize instruction by its "French instruction" and the standard must inevitably be the lowering of the very standard it sets up." -- 1894

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Education_from_a_Nation...

And yeah -- guns do democratize violence. That's precisely why they were invented. A Google search for "guns democratize violence" turns up several hits.