Apparently a historian at a college near my own has her students "interview" historical figures like Thomas Jefferson and whatnot by asking questions of LLMs that have been "instructed" to respond in the voice of those people. Jesus wept.
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that makes me feel all sorts of weird--it feels like this kind of nonconsensual digital resurrection rife with ethical issues.
apr 26, 2025, 9:22 pm • 2 0 • view
It assumes that the LLM can somehow know the totality of a person's thoughts through the portion of their written words that have survived -- and of course, what's the guarantee that the body of texts hasn't been chosen to favor particular narratives / interpretations?
apr 26, 2025, 9:24 pm • 9 4 • view
The extremely deterministic methods of LLMs -- basically a probability calculator for words -- also seem to fly in the face of the turn toward "contingency" as a historical explanation in the last few decades.
apr 26, 2025, 9:25 pm • 3 0 • view
But also, what of marginalized, and/or racialized historical subjects? I dread to think how they might end up being represented. Why are we being so credulous and uncritcal about this all, sigh
apr 26, 2025, 9:27 pm • 3 0 • view
Did you see this piece of credulous (sorry to borrow your term) fluff, from an honest-to-goodness historian? www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
apr 26, 2025, 9:30 pm • 1 0 • view
ugh, no. Will have to look at it. I will only say that I will need professors at Ivies to understand how AI will disproportionately devastate the humanities at non-Ivies.
apr 26, 2025, 9:34 pm • 4 0 • view