Impact

How will large language models impact historical research?

Some speculative thoughts:

editor interlocutor linguist software engineer tutor systematic reviewer

#EDITOR

• Academic editor consulting on a book idea [a popular book on the application of LLMs to study of history]

#INTERLOCUTOR

• Adopts specific persona to provide challenge to users arguments
• Critiques aricle and books structures
• Especially useful at brainstorming stage of writing process

#SOFTWARE ENGINEER

• Advises on SW choice
• Advises on code structure

#TUTOR

• User needs to learn how best to teach GPT-4o to perform tasks and processes
• Best way is to work collaboratively on small chunks of text with close supervision and correction, accumulating process and preferences in GPT4o memory
• Highly detailed painstaking development of processes is very fruitful for the user to clarify a process

#SYSTEMATIC REVIEW & META-ANALYSIS

#SUPPORT MULTI-LINGUAL COMMUNITIES

• Break down intellectual silos
• Opportunities for English speaking historians to access the documentary and cultural world of Arabic and Turkish