Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by XorNot 323 days ago
Who is "the Church" in this analogy?
2 comments

refers to the gutenberg press, and mass production of printed works, threatening the siloed, ivory towers of knowledge at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#Gutenberg.27s_p...

if everyone has a bible, then who needs the church to tell you what it says.

> if everyone has a bible, then who needs the church to tell you what it says.

Clearly, all the protestants who burned more witches than the catholics ever did, and kept at it for centuries after the inquisition had stopped. But that's just my opinion here.

Relying on an AI oracle to think for you is just as bad as relying on a priestly one.
People who consider themselves exceptionally smart, who are well educated and write well, who only ever need to communicate in their native tongue ye, and who have the luxury of investing time in developing a personal writing style.

It is a good analogy. There is great concern that the unwashed masses won’t know how to handle this tool and will produce information today’s curators would not approve of.

It's an extremely poor analogy, the original point is its an information virus telling people what to think (or thinking for them). It's the exact opposite of the allowing people to think for themselves that came with the enlightenment, it's back to the days of the "church" (someone else) telling people how to think and literally writing their words for them.