Comment by oidar
4 days ago
My disagreement is about the usage of the word, not about whether marketers or politicians have used it for other purposes. Sure, using “democratize” to mean “make broadly accessible” has bleached its political force, but that sense has been attested since the late 1700s to the present. Prescriptively, you can argue it shouldn’t be used that way. Descriptively, it has been, for a long time.
> My disagreement is about the usage of the word
So is mine.
> Sure, using “democratize” to mean “make broadly accessible” has bleached its political force
Making and distributing software was already “broadly accessible”. The people who could build and host software before (those with access to computing device) are the same who can do it now.
Wrongo. My bosses who couldn't write a line of code can now use AI to synthesize information from sources.
> My bosses who couldn't write a line of code
Of course they could, don’t engage in bad faith and properly steel man the argument. They might not have known how but they could certainly learn and there was absolutely nothing stopping them to do so and crack on. All the resources were already ample and free. They just didn’t want to spend the time on it. Which is fine, not everyone should learn to code, but it’s absurd to claim they couldn’t do it before and can now.