In the old days knowledge was gated primarily by work: it was almost all available in books, but you had to find the books, read the books and (hopefully) understand them.
Most knowledge was not illegal. A good example is the “Anarchist’s Cookbook”, which includes recipes for explosives. I used to own a copy, though I never made any explosives. But if you wanted better knowledge, just go to a university library (most of which allowed anyone to walk in and read the books, though not necessarily to borrow then) and learn. This was true for poisons, weapon information, guides on how to pick locks, etc, etc… There was very little knowledge you couldn’t find out, IF you were willing to do the work.
What we’re seeing with AI is restrictions on what knowledge AI will provide. For example non-institutional biology researchers have complained that some models won’t help with that: it’s too dangerous. Ask for poison info and you can get it, but it requires very careful wording of the query: no hint of wanting to use the poisons. An author might get thru by saying it’s for a novel. Anything illegal can have the knowledge frozen as well: want to research con-men or burglary or hacking? Might get thru, might not.
As time goes by it’s reasonable to expect these blocks to evolve and become harder to get around. This may seem like a good thing, I guess, but if I want to research poisons, I don’t think the government or private companies should tell me I can’t.
Now this might be OK, IF we weren’t losing the books. There are reliable accounts of AI companies buying books en-masse, then destroying them. Outside of AI, as people move more and more online, books sell less and entire warehouses are being destroyed because it doesn’t make financial sense to keep them. Universities have mostly become “closed” and you get access unless you’re a student or maybe an alumni, and they certainly track what you read (so if it’s a book someone could misinterpret, read it in the library, don’t check it out.)
The old knowledge is going away. The new knowledge is much easier to get, but also much easier to restrict.
Books were beautiful: once they existed, once you had them, they were always there. We’ve all noticed that even leaving aside AI the internet is not “forever”, sites disappear all the time, the Internet Archive and other similar sites are under constant attack, and what you read can and is easily tracked both by government and private enterprise. The life of your mind is no longer private, what you know from online can be stitched together by anyone with enough power who cares to bother, and indeed, there are pre-crime initiatives by people like Thiel, in which dossiers are kept, soon on everyone, and evaluated to see if you’re a threat.
The future looks like a place with easy knowledge, unless the powerful don’t want you to have it, in which case it will be far harder to find than it was before AI or before the internet.
Big Brother knows best, after all.
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