In this podcast episode, Diana and Nicole discuss the evolving role of AI chatbots in various writing contexts, particularly in academia and genealogy. They highlight the changing policies around the use of large language models (LLMs) in academic writing, noting how organizations like the International Conference on Machine Learning have shifted from prohibiting to allowing LLMs, provided that authors are responsible for the content and its integrity. They delve into the ethical considerations of using...
Artificial Intelligence tools have made huge strides in transcribing handwritten text in recent years. I’ve already written about FamilySearch’s use of AI to transcribe thousands of deed and probate images here: AI-Powered Full-Text Search of Handwritten Text at FamilySearch. In this post, I’ll share how I’ve been using ChatGPT 4.0 (the paid version) and Claude (free version) to upload images (.jpg and .png) and transcribe them quickly. These large language models (LLMs) do a pretty...
Exploring the use of artificial intelligence chatbots for creating written content is the new frontier – full of uncertainties and unknowns. Organizations that once prohibited the use of LLMs for research papers are now allowing them, as long as authors are fact-checking the output and attempting to cite potentially copyrighted materials included in the output. In 2023, the International Conference on Machine Learning prohibited the use of LLMs in their call for papers. In 2024,...
FamilySearch announced at RootsTech last week that they have launched a full-text search powered by artificial intelligence. It currently includes the US Land and Probate Records and Mexico Notary Records collections. This is still an “experiment” in FamilySearch labs, available at https://www.familysearch.org/Labs/, but it already includes over 100,000,000 records, with more collections to be added in the coming months. I tested the full-text search on my brick wall, the father of John Robert Dyer, born...
As 2023 draws to a close, we thought it would be fun to review the most popular posts on Family Locket published this year. I’m not surprised that our most popular post was about ChatGPT. One of my favorite ways to use ChatGPT is to summarize articles. So, I thought it would be apropos to use it to summarize the articles below. Here they are! 1. Making ChatGPT a Valuable Genealogy Assistant – April 20,...
If you’re curious about how artificial intelligence (AI) might help you become more efficient, consider experimenting with citations. The large language models (LLMs) that have become popular in the last year might prove useful in this area. I’ve been using ChatGPT to experiment with AI in the last month as a student in the National Genealogical Society (NGS) course, Empowering Genealogists with Artificial Intelligence taught by Steve Little. Steve has a great blog here: https://aigenealogyinsights.com/....
By Laura Clark Murray Since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, this artificial intelligence “bot” has been wowing users by engaging in detailed conversations, answering questions, and even writing stories and essays. But at its core, ChatGPT lacks the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction. Since facts are critical to what we do as genealogists, it’s important to understand how to keep the tool in the realm of reality. If you do that,...