Using LLMs to trace alchemical knowledge and decode 17th century letters

Automated excerpt

I’ve written previously about the pitfalls and use cases for AI in augmenting historical research, but things have changed significantly since 2024-25. Occasioned by the dueling releases of GPT-6 Sol and Opus 5. 5 this week, I thought I’d share some early results with using these models not just to perform “research assistant” type functions like transcribing documents, but to try to actually solve existing historical problems. I think AI labs, historical researchers, and funding agencies should start actively pursuing these collaborations.

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