Comment by iambateman
15 hours ago
This is all very cool so I’m not trying to be dismissive. In a lot of ways, giving a hobby out as a way to participate in the national archives is an end in itself.
But…computers can definitely do this way better, right?
I had the same thought but maybe on old hand writing they can't?
EDIT:
I tried giving the sample to 4o and it gave:
The following is the declaration of James Lambert, a soldier of the Revolutionary War in North America.
The said James Lambert this day personally appeared in the Probate Court of the County of Dearborn in the State of Indiana and at the November Term of said Court (1841), it being a court of record created by the laws of Indiana and made oath that:
On the 25th day of March 1842, he will be eighty-five years old, that he was born in the State of Maryland, that he is now a resident of said county and has been for the 27 years last past; that he has lived in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania...
> This is all very cool so I’m not trying to be dismissive. In a lot of ways, giving a hobby out as a way to participate in the national archives is an end in itself.
> But…computers can definitely do this way better, right?
No.
Cursive writing is analog and fluid, lacking consistency across authors and often inconsistent by an individual author as well. When done well, it could be classified as its own art form. When done poorly, it can resemble the path walked by a chicken on meth.
iPad seems to do OK, but it has more to go by since it has the timing and pressure as well as the written text.
Current LLMs can absolutely do this as well as you can, probably better.
> Current LLMs can absolutely do this as well as you can, probably better.
This is obviously disprovable, in that if they could, they would, and this call to action would not exist.
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