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The Kish Tablet is often cited as the oldest example of written text. Over 5,000 years old, it is a sequence of pictographic signs carved into a piece of portable limestone approximately the same height and width as an iPhone. We’ve come a long way since slabs of rock, but perhaps some ideas have been around longer than we think.

Twenty years ago I was appointed subeditor at a science and technology publication. In an early assignment, I was to interview a Hungarian computer scientist about a prototype AI. I had been treading water for some weeks, but I knew this subject was beyond me. I took my confession to my editor: that I knew nothing about AI, nor computer science of any kind. My editor stopped his typing. He stared at me, taking a measured sip of water before speaking. “And when you’ve finished the interview, that will hopefully have changed.”

It was during this interview that I learned about the Kish Tablet. The Hungarian spoke at length about it. He chuckled at this image of an ancient Sumerian bookkeeper clutching his stone tablet, pacing the desert and tutting over the numbers. It didn’t make the article, but it stayed with me, as some things do.

Writing has taken me to many places: journalism, branding, design, film; each giving me tools I cherish and use daily. Through each, I noticed they share the same core objective. That is, to serve as a kind of bridge between two people.

In a 2024 tweet, CEO Sam Altman boasted that OpenAI generates around 100 billion words a day. While undoubtedly impressive, his use of the statistic somewhat undermines that core objective.

Producing words isn’t the purpose of writing. Writing’s purpose is to be one of these bridges, carrying thoughts from one person’s mind to another. Today, we need those bridges stronger than ever, for the traffic is coming thick and fast. Our lives are changing rapidly, growing ever more complex: a world of free-flowing ideas where nothing is written in stone.