Comment by neom
17 days ago
My wife is an 18th century American history professor. LLMs have very very clearly not been trained on 18th century English, they cannot really read it well, and they don't understand much from that period outside of very textbook stuff, anything nuanced or niche is totally missing. I've tried for over a year now, regularly, to help her use LLMs in her research, but as she very amusingly often says "your computers are useless at my work!!!!"
my wish for new years is that every time people make a comment like this they would share an example task
https://s.h4x.club/bLuNed45 - it's more crazy to me that my wife CAN in fact read this stuff easily, vs the fact that an LLM can't.
(for anyone who doesn't feel like downloading the zip, here is a single image from the zip: https://s.h4x.club/nOu485qx)
Super interesting in that
1. In theory these kind of connections should be something that LLMs are great at doing. 2. It appears that LLMs are not trained (yet?) on cursive and other non-print text
1 reply →
One stumbling block is that OpenAI's best model (o1-pro) can't yet deal with image uploads (edit: I'm wrong, it works now... trying it.)
Gemini 2.0 Experimental Advanced says:
-------snip--------
This document is a petition filed in the Orphans Court of Baltimore County. Here's a breakdown of its content:
Petitioners: Neary Senters and his wife are petitioning the court.
Subject: The petition concerns a boy named James Gannon, who is identified as a pauper and has been bound (apprenticed) to them.
Issue: The petitioners claim that James Gannon is claimed by a certain Henry Haine of Baltimore City. They believe Haine is attempting to exploit the boy's labor. He obtained the boy through a seemingly valid indenture (apprenticeship contract) authorized by two Justices of the Peace in Baltimore City. However, the indenture references records in the Register of Wills' office in Baltimore City, suggesting the boy was already an indentured servant. The petitioners argue that a 1793 Maryland law (Chapter 45) regarding the binding of apprentices invalidates Haine's claim. They assert that the law requires parental consent for binding out a child, and there's no evidence of such consent in this case.
Request: The petitioners request the court to summon Henry Haine and the Justices of the Peace involved in creating the indenture. They also seek to have James Gannon and his parents (if living) appear before the court. Their ultimate goal is to have the indenture to Haine declared invalid, thus retaining custody and the labor of the boy.
Legal Argument: The core of their argument hinges on the 1793 Maryland law, which they believe was violated when James Gannon was bound to Henry Haine without parental consent. They are essentially challenging the legality of the indenture held by Haine.
In essence, this document reveals a dispute over the legal custody and labor of a young boy in 18th-century Baltimore. The petitioners are using a specific law about apprenticeship to argue against another individual's claim to the boy, highlighting the importance of legal procedures and parental rights in such matters during that time.
-------end snip--------
The prompt was simply "Please provide a detailed summary of this document" (I wasn't sure what else to ask.)
Is that closer to your wife's interpretation? I mean, I can't make head or tail of it...
9 replies →
“ From what the text shows, Henry Jenkins and his wife Caroline (the boy’s mother) are asking the Orphans Court to void an apprenticeship arrangement involving her minor son, James Timmons. They claim James—about 15 years old—was bound out as an apprentice without proper authority or the mother’s consent, and they cite Maryland law (an act from 1793 and its supplements) which they believe was not followed. They request the court declare that the indenture is invalid and restore James to his mother’s care.”
No idea if that’s correct (and no doubt not useful to an expert able to read this directly, but curious if it’s close?
1 reply →
have you been trying to provide it as an image directly? if so, doesn’t surprise me at all.
really thanks for sharing!
1 reply →