I’m not seeing how this is similar to ChatGPT at all. McLuhan is talking about custom books created by people xeroxing stuff. (in his time photocopiers were exciting new tech). He did predict something that was created, but in the 1990s – course packets from Kinko’s and the like. Rather than have us buy expensive textbooks, many professors had made arrangements with Kinko’s (a chain of photocopy stores; still existing today as FedEx Office) to sell “course packets” which consisted of various materials, often chapters from half a dozen textbooks, photocopied to create the teaching material the professor wanted. Obviously the textbook publishers were not amused by that and won vsrious legal cases (like Basic Books v. Kinko’s Graphics Corp) which doomed this service.
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