22 జూన్, 2025

"At the moment, perhaps the greatest drama in the world of popular history is..."

"... the question of whether the 89-year-old Robert Caro can finish the fifth and final volume of his Lyndon Johnson biography, a titanic undertaking that has consumed 50 years of his life. His personal papers, some of which he has already given to the New York Historical, so far constitute 150 linear feet of file boxes, and one wonders how many more prodigious biographies Caro could have produced over those 50 years if a chatbot had been able to synthesize some portion of that material for him. Then again, without a mania to touch every single source himself, and to pour the rigor of all that relentless reading into his prose, an A.I.-assisted Robert Caro would not have been Robert Caro at all."

From "A.I. Is Poised to Rewrite History. Literally. The technology’s ability to read and summarize text is already making it a useful tool for scholarship. How will it change the stories we tell about the past?" (NYT).
వీరిచే పోస్ట్ చేయబడింది Ann Althouse వద్ద 6:50 AM
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17 కామెంట్‌లు:

buwaya చెప్పారు...

Thank you for turning me on to this work many years ago.

22-06-25 7:00 AM
Ted చెప్పారు...

Actually, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Gettysburg Address were all written with AI, according to a Google AI summary of a ChatGPT report. And since more than half of all schoolchildren are using AI tools to write their history homework and cheat on tests, it might as well be true.

22-06-25 7:07 AM
tim maguire చెప్పారు...

Does the world really need more 5-volume biographies of moderately important people?

If Johnson gets 5 volumes, Eisenhower should get 500. But who would read it?

22-06-25 7:17 AM
buwaya చెప్పారు...

Johnson wasnt "moderately important".

22-06-25 7:19 AM
Leland చెప్పారు...

So it isn’t the conflict between Israel and Iran or Ukraine and Russia? Well that is good to know.

22-06-25 7:22 AM
FormerLawClerk చెప్పారు...

Histories won't be rewritten, not in the way you’d think. They won't be corrected or improved. They will be unmade, then made again, smaller, tighter, each new version a chokehold on the mind.

22-06-25 7:24 AM
Ann Althouse చెప్పారు...

"But who would read it?"

A.I. would read it.

22-06-25 7:27 AM
n.n చెప్పారు...

MI would assemble a correlation of AI consensus with Anthropogenic Interpretations, present it with Anthropogenic primitives for interaction with AI units ("persons").

22-06-25 7:36 AM
Milwaukie guy చెప్పారు...

What a great biography! Anyone who loves U.S. history should read it and it is eminently readable.

I've been waiting for volume 5 for many years. I heard someplace that he has a daughter helping him. If he can't finish it I hope someone can, even if it would not be quite as good.

22-06-25 8:30 AM
Levi Starks చెప్పారు...

I feel like AI in all its glory should be able to write something that I could read in about an hour which would make reading anything else in the future unnecessary.

22-06-25 11:22 AM
Prof. M. Drout చెప్పారు...

Well, it looks like my "one good trick" of READ THE WHOLE THING (which has given me an edge over many of my colleagues for my whole career) is in no danger from "AI." The LLM-driven studies will absolutely miss the subtle inconsistencies that indicate characteristics like multiple authorship, forgery, the copying of a damaged or poorly understood source, etc.
(What's so frustrating about all of the LLM/"AI" hype is that techniques and software that has the capability of detecting patterns that humans miss or don't perceive is being abandoned or ignored in favor of the flashy lowest-common-denominator results that LLMs produce.

22-06-25 11:42 AM
n.n చెప్పారు...

Mechanical Intelligence (MI) is neither discerning nor creative. Advantage: Anthropogenic Intelligence (AI).

22-06-25 1:01 PM
Smilin' Jack చెప్పారు...

Good grief. If a POS like LBJ deserves five volumes, Charles Manson deserves ten.
Chant it with me:
“HEY, HEY, LBJ , HOW MANY KIDS DID YOU KILL TODAY?”

22-06-25 1:06 PM
Lazarus చెప్పారు...

So for Caro and his fans, are the books the thing or is it life (LBJ's life)?

Eisenhower spent years of his life waiting for war. Soldiers do, and since he wasn't top brass in those years there wouldn't be so much to write about. LBJ was at the center of policy-making for years. There's plenty to write about there. Also, Ike rose mostly on merit. LBJ's "means of ascent" were more devious and therefore, more interesting.

People have a tendency to think of presidents in terms of the first president they were aware of. I remember much caterwauling about people growing up in the 80s thinking of Reagan as what presidents were or should be. LBJ was the first president I was aware of, so in some sense, he's the archetype, for better or for worse.

22-06-25 1:41 PM
buwaya చెప్పారు...

Its less a story about a man, specifically, than it is about his society and the events of the time.

22-06-25 4:11 PM
Lance చెప్పారు...

More importantly, will Andrew Hickey make it to song 500?

22-06-25 5:15 PM
Original Mike చెప్పారు...

"The technology’s ability to read and summarize text is already making it a useful tool for scholarship."

I don't understand this mania for AI summarizing everything. "Summarizing" what I read is how I learn the material.

22-06-25 5:24 PM

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