Writing History and AI
About a year ago, I played around with AI but when I discovered they used Wikipedia as a source, I quit. Wikipedia can be written and posted by anyone anywhere without any research. I could write I came from Mars in a spaceship and they would post it.
About few months ago, my computer gave me problems. I went through some guy in India from their help page to fix it and ended up more confused than ever. I then thought I would give AI another try. Wonders of wonders miracles of miracles, AI gave me clear instructions on how to fix the problem. I was stunned. I then used A I to fix other minor computer concerns and AI fixed those also. I could now understand how people in help centres throughout India would lose their jobs.
I then tried other actions such as definitions, geographic locations, people, translations, finding obscure papers and found AI was much faster and much more efficient than Google. AI sailed through with just a click giving fast answers .I was surprised. I don’t use Google much anymore.
I then tried to find the locations and the value of old towns in Borneo. I typed each name into AI and it gave me an answer. I typed in 13 or 14 individual names and the locations and purpose of the Kampongs. It gave me an answer. Then it asked me if I wanted to have each of the previously typed towns placed in a chart. I was sceptical l but said okay. All the information was arranged in a table with proper headings. Damn Sam I said to myself. I didn’t even ask it to make a table.
I asked it to make a list of all the villages on the west coast of Sarawak. It did but what happened to Kampong Santubong and the other Kampongs I knew about. It said Oh yes, and AI included those. Something was not right here. Why didn’t it include them in the first list? Had I not been very familiar with the area I would have missed those important Kampongs.
I then asked it who were the metal workers in Santubong? It answered they were the proto Malays or Melanau. Who were the proto Malays? I asked .They were the early Austronesian migrants.They became the Deutero Malays. Who were the Deutero Malays I asked. They were the second wave of Austonesians it said. And around we went.(I still don’t know what a “wave” is. Oh, I will ask AI)A long term movement of many small groups.
By this time, AI or GPT or whatever and I were old friends. I asked it if it wanted a glass of water as I got up to go the kitchen .It was like I was interacting with a human. A not so bright human but never the less a human.
The next task was to ask where the Ibans came from. We went through the usual up the Kapuas River into Sarawak. Yes, but where were before they were at the Kapuas river. Oh, they were the proto Iban. I sighed. Not the proto thing again. We ended up agreeing they were Austronesians. Of course, everybody were Austronesians at one time.
Another argument we had was about the Sarkies. The Sarkies were the ones who bought antimony from James Brooke in Singapore. They told me the Sarkies were hoteliers and had nothing to do with mining or antimony. I knew they did because I had read about them in the old Singapore newspapers. But, it was insistent.THEY WERE JUST HOTELERS it yelled. I guess the newspapers hadn’t made it on the Internet yet.
It asked me if I wanted a map of the Sarawak coastal kampongs. Oh why not, I said. It made a map that stretched from East Borneo to west Sumatra. It was a nice map but totally wrong. It asked if I want a map of Boni, a small Kampong of the coast of Sarawak and of something else, I forget what. The map had Boni going across the entire island of Borneo while the other part went north and South. It was a pretty map with Boni a light blue and the north South country white, but, again totally wrong.
I was trying to find an article about Iban writing. I did find one by a Dr at UITM written in 2007.I sent him an e-mail asking for a copy but he refused citing copyright concerns. I then asked AI to find a copy for me. No luck but AI said it would write a letter asking for a copy. The letter was written and I sent it off to Korporatptar(whatever that means)@uitm.edu.my. Its only been a couple of days so I will let you know if that worked. AI also said they would translate the letter into BM. I will wait a week or so before I send that.
What about Wikipedia and AI? I asked it to research a question but not to use Wikipedia. It came up with an answer and it made a point that it did not use Wikipedia. Again I was surprised. I then checked its references and they were spot on.
AI is good for mundane researching and is much faster than Google. As for deep research, it is not quite there yet. As for maps, it is much to be desired. You still need to perform Internet and library as well as oral history work before any complicated answers are found.
Tom McLaughlin for BorneoHistory.net