{"id":10535,"date":"2025-10-30T13:14:51","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T12:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/?post_type=events&#038;p=10535"},"modified":"2025-11-19T10:08:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T09:08:04","slug":"ai-assistants-in-the-archive-and-the-lure-of-instant-history","status":"publish","type":"events","link":"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/events\/ai-assistants-in-the-archive-and-the-lure-of-instant-history\/","title":{"rendered":"AI assistants in the archive and the lure of \u2018instant history\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"wp-block-unilux-blocks-free-section section\"><div class=\"container xl:max-w-screen-xl\">\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-unilux-blocks-heading\"        id=\"research-seminar-with-finola-finn\"\n    >\nResearch seminar with Finola Finn<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>AI assistants are increasingly used for navigating and analysing the contents of major archives. Applying Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to existing large language models, these tools draw on indexes of the relevant archives to answer, in natural language, users\u2019 questions. In addition to being powerful finding aids, archival AI assistants are also presented as being capable of providing useful, automated answers to questions about the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this presentation, I will share my recent and upcoming research on the epistemological and historiographical implications of these tools. I argue that archival AI assistants and how they are marketed result in conceptual disruptions and uncertainties, placing pressure on our understanding of a range of roles, forms of information, and outputs involved in the production of historical knowledge. In particular, I argue that these tools may obscure well-established beliefs that \u2018sources\u2019 and \u2018archives\u2019 are not unmediated, clearly navigable, or necessarily comprehensive, and that the processes by which these are used to write \u2018history\u2019 are by no means straightforward or instantaneous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the aim of mitigating these misunderstandings, my collaborative work in this area provides suggestions for how deployers could more carefully frame and describe the intended use of archival AI assistants (especially for public users), to ensure that their benefits for accessibility are exploited while also avoiding misconceptions and safeguarding rigorous historical practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-unilux-blocks-custom-buttons btn-list justify-center\"><li class=\"wp-block-unilux-blocks-custom-button\"    aria-disabled=\"false\"\n    >\n    <a\n        role=\"link\"\n        aria-disabled=\"false\"\n                    href=\"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/calendar?post_type=events&#038;p=10535&#038;calendar\"\n                target=\"_self\"\n        class=\"btn btn--primary\"\n            >Add to calendar<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":10537,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"featured_image_focal_point":[],"show_featured_caption":true,"ulux_newsletter_groups":"","uluxPostTitle":"","uluxPrePostTitle":"","_trash_the_other_posts":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"event_start_date":"2025-11-19 14:00:00","event_end_date":"2025-11-19 15:00:00","event_speaker_name":"Finola Finn","event_speaker_link":"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/people\/finola-finn\/","event_is_online":false,"event_location":"C\u00b2DH Open Space, 4th floor MSH","event_street":"11, Porte des Sciences","event_location_link":"","event_zip_code":"4366","event_city":"Esch-sur-Alzette","event_country":"Luxembourg"},"events-topic":[305],"events-type":[324,323,316],"organisation":[224,221],"authorship":[57],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.3 (Yoast SEO v22.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>AI assistants in the archive and the lure of \u2018instant history\u2019 - C\u00b2DH events I University of Luxembourg<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"AI assistants are increasingly used for navigating and analysing the contents of major archives. Applying Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to existing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/events\/ai-assistants-in-the-archive-and-the-lure-of-instant-history\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AI assistants in the archive and the lure of \u2018instant history\u2019\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"AI assistants are increasingly used for navigating and analysing the contents of major archives. Applying Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to existing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/events\/ai-assistants-in-the-archive-and-the-lure-of-instant-history\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"C2DH EN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/c2dh.lu\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-19T09:08:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/10\/30131218\/Finola-Finn.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"812\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/events\/ai-assistants-in-the-archive-and-the-lure-of-instant-history\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/events\/ai-assistants-in-the-archive-and-the-lure-of-instant-history\/\",\"name\":\"AI assistants in the archive and the lure of \u2018instant history\u2019 - C\u00b2DH events I University of Luxembourg\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/events\/ai-assistants-in-the-archive-and-the-lure-of-instant-history\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/events\/ai-assistants-in-the-archive-and-the-lure-of-instant-history\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/10\/30131218\/Finola-Finn.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-30T12:14:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-19T09:08:04+00:00\",\"description\":\"AI assistants are increasingly used for navigating and analysing the contents of major archives. 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