1557 Printing Monopoly Mirrors Today's Compute Thresholds
alexcovo_eth · x · 2026-09-15
Part 5/8 of the thread: kings handed exclusive printing rights to loyal shops, and in 1557 England gave the Stationers' Company a near monopoly on printing, with the guild helping hunt unlicensed presses.
The AI parallel, the author argues: a few frontier labs help write the safety rules, compute thresholds are set so high only they can clear them, and compliance becomes the gate — everyone else is an unlicensed print shop.
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