What Ottoman calligraphers can teach us about AI
"History teaches, but it has no pupils," claimed the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci.
It's hard to disagree, particularly when the frontiers of digital innovation stir up ancient fears.
Over the past two years, the acceleration of artificial intelligence has disrupted every facet of our lives.
New professions have emerged, while many traditional ones fear being wiped out, especially in the creative field: their concerns are not unfounded.
The thrill and angst of change
This isn't the first time, nor will it be the last: technological innovation has always sparked both excitement and fear, because change is never easy or painless.
Many of you may recall Socrates and his concern that writing would undermine memory. Yet, millennia later, here we are, transmitting ancient wisdom through pens, ink, and digital media.
Similarly, the movable-type printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz around the mid-1400s, wasn't always warmly received.
The sacred art of calligraphy vs. the brutality of machines
In the Ottoman Empire, for instance, printing was viewed with suspicion and banned for centuries. There were printing presses operated by Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, producing books in their respective languages - but not in Arabic.
Ottomans considered calligraphy a sacred and spiritual art, the epitome of elegance and grace - something a machine could never replicate.
The sacredness of religious books was believed to require the care and devotion of handwriting.
Then there was the more prosaic, selfish, corporative matter: an entire professional category - the eminent and respected calligraphers - stood to lose its central role. Or even disappear.
It wasn't until 1727 that Ibrahim Müteferrika established the first Muslim printing press, producing maps and non-religious books: over two and a half centuries after Gutenberg's invention.
By then, however, prejudice against the new, resistance from a professional guild, and fear of change (and perhaps of a democratic knowledge) had delayed the spread of printing in the Middle East.
This delay led to a cultural, economic, and scientific lag that was difficult to overcome.
A recurring topic in the history of technological innovation
Fast forward to 2025: does this sound familiar?
Today, too, the innovations brought by artificial intelligence frighten us; partly because, being at the dawn of their mass adoption, they remain difficult to decipher.
Today, too, many professions face a crossroads: adapt or disappear. And for many of them, even adapting will not be enough.
Today, too, we retreat into nostalgia, regretting an idealized past when many professions had not yet been obliterated by globalization and technology. But that past will not return, despite those who would make America great again and the like.
Today, too, change is inevitable: we cannot choose whether to face it, but only how.
What about our professional world?
AI is bulldozing a generation of so-called creatives, designers, content managers, social media managers, and their ilk, raised on the myths of SEO, UX, performance metrics, and the latest feature of the latest hottest tool.
Everyone follows the same rules (the infamous best practices, 10 tips for, how-tos), and so everyone ends up doing the same things.
But if you operate like a machine, you'll be easy to replace with an actual machine. One that's cheaper, less complicated, and less demanding than a human.
In our industry, discussions about identity, values, and narratives have long been dismissed as hollow and unnecessary. Philosophical is treated as an insult.
Yet, to face the future, we must rely on creativity, strategy, and personality - the good old things that make us unique and human, but which are often overlooked in a work culture that sees people as cogs in a machine.
