“Can Multi-Modal LLMs Transcribe Historic Documents?”
“Recently, both OpenAI and Google released new multi-modal large language models, where were immediately touted for their ability to transcribe documents.
“Also last week, I transcribed this document from the Library of Virginia’s collection from the Virginia Revolutionary Conventions. …
“This may ring a bell for some of you.
“One of the central controversies of the New York Times’ 1619 Project involves the assertion that the Americans declared their independence in reaction to a rising Abolitionist sentiment in Britain, which threatened to end slavery.
“This claim was disputed by socialist and conservative historians, but the discussion revolves around documents like the one we just read: colonists reacting against Lord Dunmore’s proclamation that enslaved and indentured servants joining his forces would be freed.”
The author compares his own human transcription to Transkribus’s English Eagle transformer model and to ChatGPT.
“The Transkribus output is obviously raw, and in need of correction. It looks tentative when you read it in isolation. The ChatGPT output looks much more plausible, and–in my opinion–that plausibility is treacherous.
“LLMs are good at detecting subjects-like mention of slavery–in texts. I asked that question here, and the result speaks for itself.”
Gender Desk 