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Prometheus and GPT
Confronting the tension between withholding and democratizing the latest civilization-shaking technology
Prometheus was a titan in Greek mythology responsible for creating humans and gifting them the power of knowledge — including fire.
Now, the gods of Olympus — particularly Zeus — saw humans as a threat and preferred that they be kept in a primitive state and ordered Prometheus to remove their knowledge of fire.
But Prometheus defied Zeus.
Humans kept their knowledge of fire.
Prometheus was thus harshly punished.
In the mid-2000s, Prometheus — eventually having broken free from his punishment — came to the aid of humanity and gave us the ability to connect and communicate with any other human on the planet, through the internet —democratizing power that had been consolidated by gatekeepers who owned and controlled the means of publishing and distribution.
This power could be enjoyed by anyone who participated in “social media”.
In recent years, those gatekeepers — just like Zeus before — have come to lament the societal upheaval that Prometheus caused by giving that power to us.
