From Diderot's Encyclopédie to Open AI: The Timeless Politics of Accessible Knowledge

A new analysis draws a direct parallel between the 18th-century suppression of Diderot's Encyclopédie and today's legislative push to regulate open-weight AI models, noting that both faced institutional resistance for democratising access to knowledge. In 1759, Pope Clement XIII ordered the Encyclopédie burned and King Louis XV banned it outright, while in the present day lawmakers across 45 U.S. states have introduced over 1,500 AI-related bills and major AI labs lobby Congress against freely downloadable models. The author argues that powerful institutions in both eras deployed the same tactics: warning of public danger, demanding licensing, and restricting distribution to preserve their gatekeeping role. A key distinction is also identified — unlike the printing press or the encyclopedia, AI is itself the adaptive tool people can use to keep pace with the disruption it causes. The piece suggests this self-referential quality of AI may fundamentally alter how societies absorb and respond to disruptive knowledge technologies.