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History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

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Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#411

Post by Sprotch »

saaaaaam wrote: post #3

“Time-locked models don't roleplay; they embody their training data. Ranke-4B-1913 doesn't know about WWI because WWI hasn't happened in its textual universe. It can be surprised by your questions in ways modern LLMs cannot.” “Modern LLMs suffer from hindsight contamination. GPT-5 knows how the story ends—WWI, the League's failure, the Spanish flu.” This is really fascinating. As someone who reads a lot of history an…

This is the point - a modern LLM "role playing" pre-1913 would only reflect our view today of what someone from that era would say. It woud not be accurate.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#412

Post by Sprotch »

pwillia7 wrote: post #251
saaaaaam wrote: post #3

“Time-locked models don't roleplay; they embody their training data. Ranke-4B-1913 doesn't know about WWI because WWI hasn't happened in its textual universe. It can be surprised by your questions in ways modern LLMs cannot.” “Modern LLMs suffer from hindsight contamination. GPT-5 knows how the story ends—WWI, the League's failure, the Spanish flu.” This is really fascinating. As someone who reads a lot of history an…

This is why the impersonation stuff is so interesting with LLMs -- If you ask chatGPT a question without a 'right' answer, and then tell it to embody someone you really want to ask that question to, you'll get a better answer with the impersonation. Now, is this the same phenomenon that causes people to lose their minds with the LLMs? Possibly. Is it really cool asking followup philosophy questions to the LLM Dalai L…

Nice idea, does not work

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#413

Post by Sprotch »

bondarchuk wrote: post #204

> Historical texts contain racism, antisemitism, misogyny, imperialist views. The models will reproduce these views because they're in the training data. This isn't a flaw, but a crucial feature—understanding how such views were articulated and normalized is crucial to understanding how they took hold. Yes! > We're developing a responsible access framework that makes models available to researchers for scholarly purp…

I suspect you will find a lot less of these "bad things" than anticipated. That is why the model should actually be freely available rather than restricted based on pre-conceived notions that will, I am sure, prove inaccurate.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#414

Post by arcade79 »

nottorp wrote: post #261
ajuc wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stanisław Lem predicted Kindle back in 1950s, together with remote libraries, global network, touchscreens and audiobooks.

And Jules verne predicted rockets. I still move that it's quantitative predictions not qualitative. I mean, all Kindle does for me is save me space. I don't have to store all those books now. Who predicted the humble internet forum though? Or usenet before it?

Well, there was Ender's Game, it came in '85. Usenet did exist at that point, though. Don't know if the author had encountered it.

The Shockwave Rider was also remarkable prescient.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#415

Post by madaxe_again »

morpheos137 wrote: post #404
burkaman wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Machine Stops ( https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/... ), a 1909 short story, predicted Zoom fatigue, notification fatigue, the isolating effect of widespread digital communication, atrophying of real-world skills as people become dependent on technology, blind acceptance of whatever the computer says, online lectures and remote learning, useless automated customer support systems, and ov…

There is even more to it than that. Also remember this is 1909. I think this classifies as a deeply mysterious story. It's almost inconceivable for that time period. -people a depicted as grey aliens (no teeth, large eyes, no hair). Lesson the Greys are a future version of us. The air is poisoned and ruined cities. People live in underground bunkers...1909...nuclear war was unimaginable then. This was still the age o…

Zamatyin’s We was prescient politically, socially and technologically - but didn’t fall into the trap of everyone being machine men with antennae.

It’s interesting - Forster wrote like the Huxley of his day, Zamyatin like the Orwell - but both felt they were carrying Wells’ baton - and they were, just from differing perspectives.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#416

Post by dr_dshiv »

carlosjobim wrote: post #233
dr_dshiv wrote: post #197

Everyone learns that the renaissance was sparked by the translation of Ancient Greek works. But few know that the Renaissance was written in Latin — and has barely been translated. Less than 3% of I’m working on a project to change that. Research blog at www.SecondRenaissance.ai — we are starting by scanning and translating thousands of books at the Embassy of the Free Mind in Amsterdam, a UNESCO-recognized rare book…

Amazing project! May I ask you, why are you publishing the translations as PDF files, instead of the more accessible ePub format?

Will add, great point.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#417

Post by diamond559 »

saaaaaam wrote: post #3

“Time-locked models don't roleplay; they embody their training data. Ranke-4B-1913 doesn't know about WWI because WWI hasn't happened in its textual universe. It can be surprised by your questions in ways modern LLMs cannot.” “Modern LLMs suffer from hindsight contamination. GPT-5 knows how the story ends—WWI, the League's failure, the Spanish flu.” This is really fascinating. As someone who reads a lot of history an…

Yeah, whenever we figure out time travel that will be really cool. In the meantime we have autocorrect trained on internet facts and modern textbooks that can never truly understand anything let alone what is was like to live hundreds of years ago.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#418

Post by diamond559 »

DGoettlich wrote: post #273
seizethecheese wrote: post #119

> Imagine you could interview thousands of educated individuals from 1913—readers of newspapers, novels, and political treatises—about their views on peace, progress, gender roles, or empire. Not just survey them with preset questions, but engage in open-ended dialogue, probe their assumptions, and explore the boundaries of thought in that moment. Hell yeah, sold, let’s go… > We're developing a responsible access fra…

understand your frustration. i trust you also understand the models have some dark corners that someone could use to misrepresent the goals of our project. if you have ideas on how we could make the models more broadly accessible while avoiding that risk, please do reach out @ history-llms@econ.uzh.ch

Yet your project relies on letting an llm synthesize historical documents and presenting itself as some sort of expert from the time? You are aware of the hallucination rates surely but don't care whether the information your university presents is accurate or are you going to monitor all output from your llm?

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#419

Post by EvanAnderson »

srtw wrote: post #337
jscyc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you put it that way it reminds me of the Severn/Keats character in the Hyperion Cantos. Far-future AIs reconstruct historical figures from their writings in an attempt to gain philosophical insights.

The Hyperion Cantos is such an incredible work of fiction. Currently re-reading and am midway through the fourth book The Rise Of Endymion; this series captivates my imagination and would often find myself idly reflecting on it and the characters within more than a decade after reading. Like all works, it has its shortcomings, but I can give no higher recommendation than the first two books.

I really should re-read the series. I enjoyed it when I read it back in 2000 but it's a faded memory now.

Without saying anything specific to spoil plot poonts, I will say that I ended-up having a kidney stone while I was reading the last two books of the series. It was fucking eerie.

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