"The Printing Press Democratized Knowledge": When Slogans Masquerade as History

The phrase is said so frequently it seems, like the mechanism it celebrates, to mechanically replicate itself. It's become a favorite catchphrase among tech boosters of any sort (see my post on Apple's "Crush" commercial ), but especially now among the hustlers of "AI." The argument goes: just as Gutenberg's invention freed the minds of fettered and unlettered medieval Europeans, launching them…