We are pleased to report on our recent participation in the II Workshop CLARIAH-CM: Humanidades Digitales y Ciencia Abierta en la era de la Inteligencia Artificial. This event, held on 29-30 May at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, provided an invaluable platform for knowledge exchange and discussion on the most recent advances in the field.
Hacia una revisión de los paradigmas historiográficos mediante el uso de la Inteligencia Artificial: el proyecto BADDO y el estudio del arrianismo
Our contribution to this Workshop materialised on 29 May with the presentation of the poster entitled “Hacia una revisión de los paradigmas historiográficos mediante el uso de la Inteligencia Artificial: el proyecto BADDO y el estudio del arrianismo”. The presentation was given by Dr. Nerea Fernández Cadenas, co-PI of the project.
Dr. Nerea Fernández Cadenas during the poster session of the II Workshop CLARIAH-CM: Humanidades Digitales y Ciencia Abierta en la era de la Inteligencia Artificial.
As educators, we are concerned about students using artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT or Gemini, to develop their state of the art. This represents a significant problem in the humanities, as the review of scientific literature and the creation of the state of the art are fundamental to scientific research methodology. To address this concern, the project proposes the creation of a reliable and objective language model to assist them in this task.
In her presentation, Dr. Nerea Fernández Cadenas outlined the aim of the project: to create a language model that generates literature reviews in the history field. This model, trained with data and human feedback, seeks to avoid hallucinations, errors, and biases. To illustrate these common failures of AI, Dr. Fernández Cadenas showed a practical example using Gemini as if it were a final year project student seeking help to elaborate a state of the art about King Reccared. The results showed that the AI recommended literature with fundamental errors, confusing for example the name of Thompson’s “The Goths in Spain” with “The Visigoths in Spain”, or recommending Rosamond McKitterick, a specialist on Carolingians and Franks, but not on Visigoths.
Detailed view of the poster, illustrating the erroneous bibliography recommended by Gemini.
Our Artificial Intelligence is trained on various secondary sources (texts, videos, and audios) that pertain to Reccared’s conversion. In parallel, Alfonso García Sánchez, our PhD student, will elaborate the same state of the art without using Artificial Intelligence, which will allow us to compare the results and refine our model.
Phases in the creation and improvement of the language model
The preliminary results of our research showed that, in a first phase, when the AI was fed only with secondary sources, the answers it gave were erroneous. However, by including a glossary of Visigothic terms, the biographies of the historians whose works were used and new historiography, the AI was able to correctly answer the questions asked.
Dr. Nerea Fernández Cadenas explains an example of the preliminary results of the Baddo project.
The poster provided a clear summary of the progress of the Baddo project proposal. We believe that this research represents a significant contribution to the digital humanities and to the application of Artificial Intelligence in the historical research.
Future Implications
This event has reinforced our motivation to continue to delve deeper into the creation of a language model capable of generating accurate and objective statements of the question. We look forward to sharing further developments of this research in future publications and academic forums.
Links
You can watch the full recording of our presentation (Day 05/29 between minutes 8:26:00 and 8:31:21) and the rest of the Workshop in the following links:
We would like to express our sincere thanks to the organisers for creating such a conducive environment for academic discussion and exchange of ideas. Their dedication and excellent management were fundamental to the success of the event.
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