At first, as with anything new, there was excitement about the opportunities and possibilities that digital tools in history and archival work would bring. Students would have access to great swaths of archives for research, and professors can readily give students things to read without worrying about accessibility or if their university library holds the item. However, there is also fear of these new opportunities. Students may become overwhelmed by the amount of information out there, and professors and teachers weren’t prepared for how to teach students how to use and search databases effectively. An interesting idea Amanda Seligman presents is using digital tertiary sources, such as Wikipedia. When I was in high school, I was taught that Wikipedia and the ‘greatest crime for academics’ were synonymous. So, when I got to college and was told that Wikipedia could be used as a starting point, I was confounded. But, it makes sense in reality. You should not use a site that many people can edit and make claims on in citations for papers, but you can find their sources and have them do the work for you. Students, as presented by Seligman, should use Wikipedia, but like any new or digital source, be taught how to use it for their benefit and to encourage learning rather than giving a blanket or generalized history. Another interesting point is made by Sharon Leon, that the humanities do not need saving and that the presence of digital tools do not indicate that it does. Simply, historians are learning how to use digital tools not to make them more relevant, thought it helps, but instead to test the bounds of the humanities fields. It allows for more access to history and how people engage in history in changing. Digital tools into history has been, for the most part useful, for both the public, academics, and students. There was a fear of using digital tools and now digital historians and computer scientists (I think that’s who’s coding these tools) are shaping tools specifically for the humanities and furthering its horizons.
AI, much like in the early 2000s with the simple website or digital database, is a new tool that historians must deal with. They must learn how to use it, understand it, and how to teach using it. I hold my own opinions on AI (hint: they are VERY negative), but I am not unaware that AI, if used responsibly, can be very beneficial. It can transcribe documents, it can help pull sources from the millions that are available, it can do spell and grammar checks, and the list goes on. However, my fear and I think a fear of a lot of people in the humanities is how do we take this intelligence and make sure it is not taking away from our learning and the knowledge of others? How do we ensure that students and the general public are not using AI as a means of not thinking for themselves? AI can be helpful in the research process, but it cannot be a crutch. I think that AI and the humanities still have a long way to go and that we need to still learn what it can do. A group in our class is exploring that, and I applaud them for going into this territory of learning new tools for history. I think it will be a long road, much like with history websites, but ultimately, a “correct” or close enough answer will be given for how to use this, and it will take even longer as AI’s capabilities change.
