AI—Artificial Intelligence or Actual Ignorance?
AI still has a long way to go before it can be considered a credible source for historical events. Several years ago, my first, my very first, attempt to use AI for research taught me a valuable lesson. I asked it for books on World War II damage control, and it returned what I first thought was information on a book by a distinguished historian. However, I couldn’t find the book listed anywhere else, in or out of print. I reached out to the historian it cited as having written the book, only to discover he had not authored any such book. AI had answered my prompt with what I felt was a massive hallucination! The historian was very gracious in setting me straight. Ever since, my mantra has been “once bitten, twice shy!“
Since I don’t have the resources of a university history department, I have been using a different AI, Perplexity, as a tool to develop a marketing plan and as a research assistant. Perplexity cites its sources so that I can verify them. And I do.
AI Doesn’t Understand The Truth Is More Engaging!
Which brings me to a related issue. Several weeks ago, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when I came across a video about the USS Franklin on a World War II page whose content was generated by AI. I settled in to watch the 30-minute-or-so video, curious to see if I would learn something useful.
My curiosity quickly turned to disappointment, then to skepticism, and finally to outright disgust as the content contained more than twenty (I stopped counting after ten) errors, large and small.
The most egregious was its misrepresentation of Lt. Donald Gary’s actions on March 19, 1945. Especially when Gary, a Medal of Honor recipient for his actions that day, has one of the most detailed and engaging accounts of any crew member. Why they didn’t stick to the facts rather than inventing things he didn’t do is a mystery to me. The strange thing is I have never seen any account about Gary close to what AI said he did.
I’ve now lost all respect and credibility for that particular Facebook page.
“Never Believe Anything You Read and Only Half of What You See!”
When you watch history-related videos or other content generated by AI, keep a skeptical eye out as you consume the content. AI has a long way to go before it will be credible. (This makes me wonder how effective and accurate it is when used for other purposes.)
For the record, I will not use AI to write my book, only for marketing and research purposes.
Did you arrive here via a search engine? I am the author of the forthcoming book Heroes By The Hundreds: The Story of the USS Franklin (CV-13). In addition to writing about the bravery of her crew, I will discuss the lessons we can learn in leadership and decision-making.
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-Glenn
