From the 16th-Century Printing House to Digitalization and AI 🇧🇪

I originally went to Antwerp to pay homage to Rubens' studio. Unexpectedly, what moved me the most was the "Plantin Moretus Museum," which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site due to its collections.✨ This is the original site of the Plantin Moretus family, the renowned printing magnates of Europe at that time, founded in 1555! To this day, it still houses the family's first mechanical printing press and over 900 sets of metal typefaces that are truly astonishing. Interestingly, Rubens was actually the close friend of the second-generation successor of the family. He almost exclusively painted the family portraits and illustrated their botanical and mythological books. Where else can you see a dozen or so Rubens paintings "crowding" an entire exhibition hall? At that moment, I had this strange illusion that "Rubens and I are both bricklayers." Speaking of printing and typesetting, the rise of paper books and today's digital age have a similar effect:🚀 Both are committed to making information accessible more quickly and easily to more people, thereby igniting the intelligence and productivity of the populace. It can be said that the Renaissance and the widespread use of paper printing, which enlightened the people, are complementary.💡 Apple's early investment in font design is a well-known story. The Plantin Moretus Museum, however, treasures over 900 sets of font treasures, represented by the classic Garamont font.📚 The core goal of both is the same: to make information clear and readable on new media, with just the right amount of aesthetic appeal. As for GenAI, it does not create new knowledge itself, but it has great potential in information dissemination, especially in the integration of interdisciplinary knowledge. For a truly curious scholar, as long as the LLM they use is updated in a timely manner with the latest scientific research results from various fields of human endeavor, he/she can more easily perceive breakthroughs in their own field and even adjacent disciplines. As Steve Johnson said in "Where Good Ideas Come From": "Interdisciplinarity is the source of new ideas." In this light, a country that leads in the field of GenAI is indeed more likely to expand its advantageous position in science and innovation. #Belgium