Ancient cylindrical printing presses

While printing is often considered to be a relatively modern invention, actually, it is an extremely old one, as old as civilization and writing itself. Ancient cylindrical seals or rollers, often inscribed on exotic precious stones, that could roll out inscribed proclamations or symbols of authority over and over again, date from as early as 3500 B.C. These were never used to generate ancient books simply because of the extraordinary cost of inscribing these cylinders, both in terms of the materials themselves and in terms of the skilled labor and time required to perform the task of the inscription itself. It was much cheaper simply to get scribes to copy these writings on papyrus or clay, over and over again. We should bear in mind skilled copying remained a very important skill in human society well into the twentieth century. Shorthand writers were still being employed in courtrooms up until the late twentieth century. The first mechanical stenotype machines were available in the 1870's, but they were expensive, awkward and prone to breakdowns. Pen and paper cost pennies, and human labor could be very cheap still. It was the difference between an expensive high tech barrier and an easy and cheap human skill, just like in ancient Sumerian times with the ancient cylindrical printing presses for seals. In a broader sense, this ties into the limitations of Artificial Intelligence. We don't really know what "intelligence" is anyway, but what we call AI these days is just the latest incarnation of machines, machines that take advantage of advances in computer memory and speed to significantly increase the range of human tasks that can be effectively automated. However, there are many things we cannot automate, perhaps because we simply don't understand them well enough to define rules to follow for them. Will we ever understand all these rules? We may never know. #ai #technology #economics #philosophy