It is not uncommon to hear the argument that the current technological revolution – that of artificial intelligence (AI) – will promote benefits similar to significant technological transformations of the past, such as [re-]invention of the printing press in the West or the Industrial Revolution.
A [re-]invention, in 1450, of the mobile press in the West (by Gutenberg) and its progressive popularization, allowed the mass edition of books, making them more accessible and cheaper, facilitating the dissemination of knowledge and the diffusion of ideas throughout Europe. Printed books include the Bible, works by classical authors such as Aristotle, Plato and Cicero, the 95 Theses of Luther, books on medicine and science such as The human body’s device by Andreas Vesalius, but also, and above all, literary works in vernacular languages, such as The Decameron by G. Boccaccio and The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Significant editorial success (30 editions printed between the 15th and 17th centuries) had the Hammer of witches (known in Portuguese as The Witches’ Hammer), by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, published in 1487 in the German city of Speyer, a manual inquisitorial which reports on the properties of “demons” and their connection with witchcraft, how to deal with such entities, how to carry out trials – with a wide repertoire of torture – and how to carry out sentences (various ways in which “witches” die). Without the ease of printing and subsequent dissemination of this evil work, tens of thousands of poor and marginalized women would have been spared vile persecution, torture and murder.