Study Tools Archives

ChatGPT and IA: A New Frontier in Cold War Research?

June 8, 2023 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

Full disclosure. I was going to write about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its offshoots like ChatGPT at some point later this summer, but not now. I changed my mind yesterday when I got this email.

In case you don’t know, Jetpack is a plugin that bloggers use to protect their website and provide statistics on their content. But now Jetpack is offering to actually write the content. This is from an email I received yesterday.

Here are a few examples of the features the Jetpack AI Assistant offers to enhance your content creation journey:

Seamless WordPress Integration: The Jetpack AI Assistant effortlessly integrates with the WordPress Editor, offering an intuitive interface to interact with AI.

AI-Powered Content Generation: Simply provide a prompt, and watch as Jetpack AI Assistant crafts compelling blog posts, detailed pages, structured lists, and comprehensive tables — all customized to match your unique requirements.

Superior Spelling and Grammar Check: Avoid those embarrassing mistakes with Jetpack AI Assistant’s spelling and grammar correction features.

Adaptive Tone Adjustment: Whether your style is formal or conversational, the AI Assistant adapts to fit your needs.

Title & Summary Generation: Struggling to find a good title or summary? Jetpack AI Assistant has you covered. It will create fitting titles and concise summaries for your posts.

Translate Effortlessly: AI‑powered translations are at your fingertips so you can break down language barriers.

Sounds perfect right? A genie will do all your writing for you while you sit back and have a ‘cup of Joe’.

Well, I’m saying “not so fast.” At least for history topics.

I’ll get to my reasons in a moment, but first I’m going to let ChatGPT do the talking for me. Here’s what I got back when I asked it to tell me the pros and cons of using AI for historical research.

My prompt: please list the pros and cons of using ai for historical research

Using AI for historical research can have several pros and cons. Here are some of the key points to consider:

Pros:

Enhanced Access to Information: AI-powered tools and technologies can facilitate broader access to historical information. Digitization and indexing projects, combined with AI-powered search algorithms, can make historical sources more readily available to researchers.
Data Analysis and Processing: AI can efficiently process vast amounts of historical data, including documents, archives, texts, images, and audio recordings. It can help historians analyze and organize large datasets quickly, saving time and effort.
Pattern Recognition and Insights: AI algorithms can identify patterns and correlations within historical data that might be difficult or time-consuming for human researchers to uncover. This can lead to new insights, discoveries, and a deeper understanding of historical events and trends.
Language Translation and Transcription: AI can assist in translating historical documents from different languages, making primary sources accessible to researchers who may not be proficient in those languages. It can also automate the transcription process, converting handwritten or hard-to-read texts into digital, searchable formats.
Preservation and Restoration: AI can contribute to the preservation and restoration of historical artifacts, documents, and artworks. Advanced imaging techniques, machine learning algorithms, and computer vision can help restore damaged or degraded materials, preserving them for future generations. Through technologies such as optical character recognition (OCR), AI can convert physical materials into digital formats, making them easily searchable and accessible to researchers.

Cons:

Lack of contextual understanding: While AI algorithms excel at processing data, they often lack contextual understanding and the ability to interpret historical events in their broader social, cultural, and political contexts. Human researchers are better equipped to provide nuanced interpretations and contextual analyses.
Bias and limitations in training data: AI systems are only as good as the data they are trained on. AI algorithms are trained on existing data, which may contain biases, inaccuracies, or omissions. If historical data used to train AI models reflects systemic biases or historical distortions, it can perpetuate and amplify those biases in the analysis and interpretation of historical events.
Loss of Human Perspective: Relying solely on AI for historical research might result in the loss of the human perspective, creativity, and intuition that historians bring to their work. Historical research involves subjective judgments, interpretation, and the ability to craft narratives that go beyond mere data analysis.
Interpretation challenges: Historical research often involves interpreting and making sense of incomplete or conflicting information. AI algorithms may struggle with ambiguity, uncertainty, and contradictory evidence, leading to potentially inaccurate or oversimplified conclusions.
Limited creativity and critical thinking: AI algorithms primarily rely on pattern recognition and predefined rules. They may lack the creative and critical thinking abilities of human researchers, which are often crucial for historical research.
Ethical considerations: The use of AI in historical research raises ethical concerns, particularly regarding data privacy, ownership and intellectual property rights, and the potential for misuse. Additionally, there may be ethical dilemmas surrounding the development and deployment of AI systems that automate or replace human researchers. Care must be taken to ensure that historical materials are used ethically and respectfully, especially when dealing with sensitive or personal information.
Technical Limitations: AI technologies are not infallible and can have technical limitations. Machine learning models can produce errors, misinterpretations, or inaccuracies, especially when faced with complex or ambiguous historical data.

ChatGPT’s Conclusion: It’s important to note that AI can be a valuable tool in historical research, but it should not replace human expertise and critical analysis. A balanced approach that combines AI-driven analysis with human interpretation and contextual understanding is often the most effective.

What do I think?

I’ve been playing around with the free version of ChatGPT. Sign up here if you’d like to give it a try.

Mainly I’ve been using it to test ideas and to get rid of the ‘how to fill a blank page’ problem. I’ve found it incredibly useful for those purposes. I haven’t used it write a blog post or to do serious research.

I’ve been told that if you ask for sources for the information ChatGPT gives you, you’d better be very careful to check every single source. Many of the sources they give you just don’t exist. And there is a disclaimer at the bottom of the chat that says Free Research Preview. ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts.

Want to use AI for work? You might want to think twice. Here’s an article from the New York Times titled Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT.

And if you’re a student, you need to be even more careful. There are apps that can discern if a paper was written by a human or a chatbot and any educators I know are using them. They’re hard to fool!

Perhaps more importantly, how can you make sure that the information you’re using is accurate. Can you tell if something you’re reading has been created by a chatbot? It’s hard. Read this article and test your ability to tell the difference. It’s a lot of fun!

Last Words

Play around with AI, but BE CAREFUL. IT CAN BE A CLEVER LIAR. DO NOT TRUST IT. VERIFY EVERYTHING!

I’d love to hear what you think. Have you tried AI? Have you found it useful? How are you using it? Do you want to try it? Is it a force for good or is everything about it negative? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

_________________________________

Feature Photo: Focal Foto on Flickr

Cold War Terms: What You Need to Know

June 28, 2017 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

Want to be a good conversationalist when people start talking about the Cold War? Here are the terms you need to know.

Appeasement: a diplomatic policy aimed at granting concessions to potential enemies to avoid war; generally considered a synonym for weakness.

Article 51 of the UN Charter: allows for collective self-defense through regional organizations to be created outside the UN but within the principles of the charter. Enabled regional organizations to escape Russian vetoes in the security council.

Article III of the Atlantic Charter: after the end of World War II, all peoples should have the right to choose the form of government under which they will live.

Article IV of the Atlantic Charter: all states should enjoy access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for economic prosperity.

Atlantic Charter: a joint declaration issued at the Atlantic Conference on August 14, 1941. The conference took place on warships off the coast of Newfoundland and was attended by Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The document detailed the goals and aims of the Allied powers concerning the war and the post-war world. It had eight principle points:
• no territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or the United Kingdom;
• territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of the peoples concerned;
• all peoples had a right to self-determination;
• trade barriers were to be lowered; with respect to international trade, both “victor [and] vanquished” would be given market access “on equal terms;”
• there was to be global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare;
• the participants would work for a world free of want and fear;
• the participants would work for freedom of the seas;
• there was to be disarmament of aggressor nations, and a postwar common disarmament.

Atlantic Conference: took place on warships off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941. Codenamed Riviera, the conference was attended by Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

American Grand Strategy: an integration of military and economic objectives in the war against communism. The military component was concerned with repelling the Soviet threat through a policy of containment. The economic component was concentrated on protecting America’s desire for open markets. At first, the two prongs could be separated. By the end of the Eisenhower administration, however, the two were intertwined.

Bretton Woods: international conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944; created a World Bank (the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The US hoped that these two agencies would reconstruct, then stabilize and expand world trade.

Capitalist Encirclement: Russian fear of foreign encroachment and perception that the Western powers were attempting to isolate the Soviets by creating such buffer states as Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia in Eastern Europe.

Competitive Grand Strategy: the rivalry between the individual grand strategies of the two superpowers as they competed for power and influence in the less developed world.

Declaration of Liberated Europe: a proposal by FDR at Yalta in February 1945 that provided that each of the three powers — Great Britain, Russia, and the United States — would pledge cooperation in applying the self-determination principle to newly liberated nations. The Russians amended the declaration until it was virtually meaningless.

First Red Scare: a fear driven anticommunist movement that emerged following the Bolshevik (Russian) Revolution of 1917 and the intensely patriotic years of World War I. Nationwide hysteria gripped America in 1919-1920 provoked by a mounting fear and anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent that would undermine America’s way of life.

Grand Strategy: see American Grand Strategy, Soviet Grand Strategy, and Competitive Grand Strategy.

International Monetary Fund: established at Bretton Woods with $7.3 billion to stabilize currencies so that trade could be conducted without fear of currency depreciation or wild fluctuations in exchange rates.

Iron Fence: an early term for what later became known as the “iron curtain;” physically, the Iron Curtain took the shape of border defenses between the countries of Western and Eastern Europe, most notably the Berlin Wall, which served as a longtime symbol of the Curtain as a whole.

Manifest Destiny: in terms of the Cold War, a sense that America’s mission was to spread its values and economic system across the globe.

Munich Conference: the French and British appease Hitler by giving Germany part of Czechoslovakia.

Potsdam Conference: the West recognizes a new Polish-German boundary. Allows Russia to take reparations out of its occupation zone of eastern Germany (primarily agricultural). Permits Russians to have 25% of reparations from the three Western occupation zones; the Russians are to pay for these reparations with food from the Russian zone. This laid the basis for eastern and western Germany.

Russian “sphere”: a geographic area (Eastern Europe) that would serve as a strategic buffer against the West.

Open Door: an open international marketplace where all states enjoy access on equal terms to the trade and raw materials that are necessary for their economic prosperity.

Second Front: the idea that the Allies would open another combat zone against the Germans in Western Europe to take the pressure off the Russians who were battling the Germans on the Eastern Front.

Soviet Grand Strategy: focused on combating the threat of ‘capitalist encirclement’ and on acquiring the resources necessary to develop economic and industrial prowess as a preparation for the war that was “inevitable” as long as capitalism existed.

Versailles Peace Conference: the meeting of the the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for Germany and other defeated nations, and to deal with the empires of the defeated powers following the Armistice of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 29 countries who met, discussed and came up with a series of treaties (“Paris Peace Treaties”) that reshaped the map of Europe and the world, and imposed guilt and stiff financial penalties on Germany.

World Bank (the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development): established at Bretton Woods with a treasury of $7.6 billion (and authority to lend twice that amount) to guarantee private loans given to rebuild war-torn Europe and for building up less industrialized nations.

Yalta: the Russian Black Sea resort where the Big Three — Russia, the United States, and Great Britain — met in February, 1945, to shape the postwar world.

COLD WAR STUDIES IS NOW ON FACEBOOK

March 10, 2014 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

Finally, Cold War Studies is on Facebook. I’m really happy about this because it allows me to post more types of Cold War information: cultural, environmental, current events. I hope you’ll check us out. Fancy buttons are coming soon! Meanwhile, we’d love some likes.

INTRODUCING ISLAM

October 1, 2012 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

Today Cold War Studies is introducing its first ever online minicourse. I’m really excited about this and hope that you’ll want to join me in exploring Introducing Islam.

Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Islam has been in the headlines. And, most often in the western world, the religion has not generated positive press. Still, it has generated a lot of interest. Now people who couldn’t even spell it before have read the Qur’an. Or, at least they claim to know its message.

This introductory course is my attempt to provide you with reliable information on the history and background of Islam.

Regular readers know that I — along with my family — spent several years living and working in the Middle East. Before making the move, I read everything that I could get my hands on that would give me some insight into the social and religious traditions of the region. Then, while living in Iran, I learned more.

Introducing Islam will start with the basics of one of the world’s great religions and then move into its more political aspects. The course will conclude by drawing attention to some of the main issues facing us now as we strive for religious tolerance and understanding in today’s contentious world.

Here are some of the topics that the course will address:

1. Introducing Islam

2. The Prophet Mohammad

3. The Succession

4. The Split: Sunnis and Shi’as

5. The Shi’ite ‘Twelvers’

6. Other Shi’ites

7. Assasins, Alawis, and Druzes

8. Safavids and Sufis

9. The Community: Religious Organization

10. Fundamentalism: Wahabism and Salafis

11. Neo-Fundamentalists

12. Islam and the Arab Spring

If you’re interested in receiving Introducing Islam in your e-mail inbox, please sign up below. As soon as you sign up and confirm, you’ll be directed to the first installment. Subsequent articles will arrive in your inbox once or twice a week.

Join Introducing Islam

I’m excited about the course and hope you’ll join me. Also, I’d love to hear your ideas about courses that you’d like to see Cold War Studies present in the future.

Once again, use the link below to sign up for Introducing Islam:

Join Introducing Islam

Enjoy the course!

COLD WAR STUDY TOOL: HINTS ON WRITING PAPERS

October 21, 2011 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

General Hints on Writing Papers on the Cold War (or any other topic)

1. Develop your argument.

Don’t just plunge in. Unpack the question you want to address.

Ask yourself what the point of your argument really is.
Make sure that you define the main point of the paper and then address it.
Your argument is posing some issue that turns on the meaning of particular words or on the evidence that can be presented on either side. Define this point as sharply as you can.

2. Plan your approach.

Once you identify the point that you want to get across, brainstorm the arguments that might be made. There will be more than one, on more than one side of the issue.

Choose the case you want to make and then outline the specifics of your argument.
Your argument, like the main point you have focused on, will turn on the definitions of terms, the evidence that can be cited, and the logic that strings your case together. Make sure that you cover all these points in your paper.

3. Argue your point.

Never write passively. Never just repeat material you have heard or read in class or in the text.

To be effective, you need to argue to make your case. You also need to argue against the opposing case(s).
In making your case, you have to construct an argument from some set of assumptions, evidence, and reasoning. Often the best way to do this is to rebut the case that can be made on the other side(s) of the issue.
One makes one’s own case by knocking down the opposing arguments.

4. Document what you say.

All arguments are essentially personal. They arise from how you see the issues that have been presented in the question.

Much hinges on how terms are defined, and this can come down to value judgments.
Whatever case you argue, its credibility depends critically on documenting it from the films, facts and readings you have encountered in your research.
You have to make a connection between your personal view and reality, and for this illustrations and citations are essential.
Never just passively repeat course material, but also never just present an opinion without support.

5. Know your stuff.

There’s no substitute for knowing your material before you come to write about it.

Clear writing is inseparably connected to clear thinking, and one can only think clearly about what one knows well.
There is no substitute for having done the readings in the course well, preferably by reducing the most important points to notes. This is the only way to have all the materials you need at your fingertips.
One reason many people can write best about themselves is that this is the subject we all know most about.

6. Write logically.

Writing is never simply writing. It is always going somewhere. It is making a case.

Remember the logical structure in the outline you have made for your paper, and carry it through the actual writing.
Deal with each major point in at least a paragraph.
Do not meander as you write and come to a conclusion only at the end.
Do your thinking at the outlining state, and then write out the finished argument.

7. Frontload your writing.

Put the point up front–at the beginning of the paper as a whole, and then at the beginning of each sentence and paragraph.

Start off with an introduction that states your main contention. Then argue it with a series of paragraphs, each for one stage in the argument. Within each paragraph, put the main point in the first sentence, then elaborate and support it in the rest of the paragraph.
Put the main subject and verb up front in each sentence. If you write this way it will be easier to keep the logical structure of what you are writing in mind.

8. Write like you speak.

Many people feel that they have to adopt an artificial, convoluted style when they set pen to paper. They are often much more direct and forceful when they speak.

Write like you speak. Imagine you have only 30 seconds to make your point, and say it.
Keep it simple. Write mainly using simple nouns and verbs, and avoid unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.
Less is usually more.
Do not mimic how other authors, students, or professors would say it. Dare to say it as you would, and you will usually say it more clearly.
The complexity in your argument, if it is necessary, should lie in the argument itself, in the reasoning and evidence you present, and not in the language.

9. Rewrite.

Rewriting is essential for clarity. Logical or evidence problems that did not appear at the outline stage often surface during the actual writing, requiring restructuring.

Editing will make your language sharper.
Strive constantly for simplicity, brevity, and force.
With each edit, the argument you are making should come out more and more clearly.

(adapted from Professor Lawrence M. Mead)