From Clay Tablets To Chatgpt: A Brief History Of Human Knowledge

From clay tablets to electronic tablets, technology has played an influential role in shaping human knowledge. Today we stand on the brink of the next knowledge revolution . It is one as big as - if not more so - the invention of the printing press, or the dawning of the digital age.

Generative artificial intelligence is a revolutionary new technology able to collect and summarise knowledge from across the internet at the click of a button. Its impact is already being felt from the classroom to the boardroom , the laboratory to the rainforest .

Looking back to look forward, what do we expect generative AI to do to our knowledge practices? And can we foresee how this may change human knowledge, for better or worse?

While printing technology had a huge immediate impact , we are still coming to grips with the full-scale of its effects on society. This impact was largely due to its ability to spread knowledge to millions of people.

Of course, human knowledge existed before the printing press. Non-written forms of knowledge date back tens of thousands of years, and researchers are today demonstrating the advanced skills associated with verbal knowledge .