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Right, another key thing that historians do is working with important records that have not been digitized. And the vast majority of the world’s records *have not been digitized* and thus do not exist in any format that LLMs/AI can work with.

I’m a biologist and we also have archives. They’re specimens in jars. In order for me to do my research, I need to get a lizard from a museum, scan it, then turn the scan into a 3d object. Only then can I see how many bones it has. Also, saying how many bones an animal has involves interpretation.

years ago, i spent a chunk of time helping out with a collection where i was counting teats on wet specimens of mice, which surprisingly also required interpretation. plus I doubt a computer could blowdry rodents half as effectively as an intern 😏 gotta have hands

Haha! I love museum collections for that reason. You learn so many bizarre skills. Professional nipple counter and dead animal hair stylist. Skills you can never put on a resume.