Tech Meets History

AI-written text and Gutenberg’s printing press

Today’s tech: software that can produce pages of text in seconds

The history

The Library of Congress says printing of the Gutenberg Bible was probably completed late in 1455 at Mainz, Germany. It calls it the first great book printed in Western Europe from movable metal type, and credits Johann Gutenberg with making uniform, interchangeable metal type. Its pages are set in two columns of 42 lines each.

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The parallel

Before the press, every book was copied by hand. After it, the same text could be reproduced quickly and cheaply. People then had to learn new habits: checking who printed something and whether it was true. Families face a similar question with text made by software today.

Talk about it

1. What jobs changed when books no longer had to be copied by hand?
2. How can a reader tell who made a printed page, or a web page, and whether to trust it?
3. The Gutenberg Bible’s margins copied the proportions scribes used. Why might a new technology imitate the old one at first?

Sources

• Library of Congress: The Gutenberg Bible
• Library of Congress: The Page, The Gutenberg Bible

Sources checked Oct 17, 2026.