TECHNOLOGY · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE · HISTORIOGRAPHY
I try to read new technology, artificial intelligence and the past not through the window of a single discipline, but from the place where they all meet.
Hammurabi held the builder responsible for a collapsed house. Roman paint workers tied bladders over their faces to keep out dust. Vitruvius noticed that working with lead ruined workers' health. The roots of workplace safety are older than we think.
Persian couriers, the stations of the Royal Road, the clay envelopes of Kültepe and the post carriages of Augustus. The thrill and the frustration of waiting for a parcel are older than we think.
Unexpected excuses for skipping work, a strike by workers whose wages were late and the letter of an angry customer. The troubles of office life are much older than we think.
A chatbot at Delphi, a data centre in Alexandria, a debate on artificial intelligence in the agora. The ancient world was not as foreign to this idea as we think.
Artificial intelligence can read sources, summarise them and even form hypotheses. So what makes a historian a historian, and can it be coded?
Around 95 million documents, six centuries of record keeping and the barrier of an old script: a short look inside one of the largest archives in the world.
Herodotus
Questions about history and this blog's articles
HERODOTUS
Hello, I'm Herodotus. I try to answer your questions about history and Berkant's articles. What would you like to know?
Herodotus is an AI and can make mistakes. Check important information against the sources.