The Role of a New Machine An old book puts today's new technology in perspective

New issue of my newsletter: "The Role of a New Machine" — An old book puts today's new technology in perspective newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...

Vibe Analysis Despite its unserious name, vibe coding shows promise for elements of serious scholarly work

New issue of my newsletter: “Vibe Analysis” — Despite its unserious name, vibe coding shows promise for elements of serious scholarly work

Featuring good work by @sarahebull.bsky.social, @jasonheppler.org and @cblevins.bsky.social

newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/vibe...

A Museum's Sublime Hallucinations Sometimes you need the fake to show you what's real

A small, strange museum shows how human intelligence can be more surprising and engaging than artificial general intelligence can ever hope to be newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/a-mu...

Wow this book looks incredible! Looking forward to reading it

A Museum's Sublime Hallucinations Sometimes you need the fake to show you what's real

New essay: “A Museum’s Sublime Hallucinations” — Sometimes you need the fake to show you what’s real (a love letter to the Museum of Jurassic Technology) newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/a-mu...

We may very well look back on our first years of engagement with AI in forms like ChatGPT as we now look back on AOL before the flourishing of the World Wide Web — a comfortable, contained, and relatively inflexible introduction to a new digital world. The flexibility and expansiveness of the Web — the fact that anyone could assemble sites and services from servers, collections, and data from around the world — made it a much better environment for the generation of new ideas.

The second piece in my series on finding the right line between human thought and AI assistance: “Can AI Prompt Us to Ask New Questions?” newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/can-...

Can AI Prompt Us to Ask New Questions? Not with chatbots as we know them, but perhaps with what comes next

New essay: “Can AI Prompt Us to Ask New Questions?” — Not with chatbots as we know them, but perhaps with what comes next

newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/can-...

And an occasional reminder that you can subscribe to my newsletter Humane Ingenuity at newsletter.dancohen.org

Where Should Scholars Draw the Line on AI? Between the poles of Zero AI and AI For Everything lies a vast, poorly mapped middle ground

New issue of my newsletter: “Where Should Scholars Draw the Line on AI?” — Between the poles of Zero AI and AI For Everything lies a vast, poorly mapped middle ground newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/wher...

A Hero's Iconography A shocking photograph featured a brave man — and visual echoes of the art he loved

A special issue of my newsletter for Martin Luther King Jr. Day: “A Hero's Iconography” — A shocking photograph featured a brave man — and visual echoes of the art he loved newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/a-he...

Far From Reassuring AI companies need to focus on limits, not limitless possibilities, to get the public on board

New issue of my newsletter: "Far From Reassuring" — AI companies need to focus on limits, not limitless possibilities, to get the public on board newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/far-...

No worries, happens all the time between NWU and NEU

Thanks! (And just a note that I’m at Northeastern not Northwestern)

I have now tested this with Claude 4.5 Opus and it's as good as Gemini 3 Pro, nearly perfect transcriptions. And I've gotten a lot of email that they also work well on non-English-language transcriptions & have heard from some libraries/archives that AI has finally reached a state of usefulness here

Just drag and drop the archival image into it and ask it to transcribe

The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved

New issue of my newsletter: "The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition" — One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved, and it's a good use of AI newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...

The Index and the Vector Converting ambiguity into precision can help a broader audience discover and learn from collections

New issue of my newsletter: "The Index and the Vector" — Converting ambiguity into precision can help a broader audience discover and learn from collections newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...

Northeastern University Library has developed a server and plugin that work with any LLM or chatbot to improve search results and answer the question “What if we could combine the LLM’s better understanding of a student’s aims with the rigorous index and robust collection of a research library?”

The Library’s New Entryway An interface that combines the advantages of the traditional index with the power of LLMs is the path forward

New issue of my newsletter: “The Library’s New Entryway” — An interface that combines the advantages of the traditional index with the power of LLMs is the path forward newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...

@maxread.info re: your latest newsletter on a public-option AI, FYI: the Public Interest Corpus project we're working on: publicinterestcorpus.org

more here:
newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/book...
and here:
newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/huma...

The Reboot of Digital Humanities Now Discover the latest work from across the field and around the world

New issue of my newsletter: "The Reboot of Digital Humanities Now" — Discover the latest work from across the field and around the world newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...

Opinion | What a New Landmark AI Settlement Will Mean for Authors Creators should demand credit, not just compensation.

My essay on the tense relationship between authors and AI, as embodied in a major lawsuit against Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now in the Chronicle of Higher Education: www.chronicle.com/article/what...

Will a Landmark AI Settlement Make Authors Feel Whole? The remuneration from Bartz v. Anthropic may not provide what writers really want: respect, recognition, and readers

I have updated my in-depth analysis of Bartz v Anthropic to reflect this important and overlooked aspect of the proposed settlement: “In what may be a rude surprise for authors, partial or full payments for many books may go to publishers rather than authors.” newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/land...

Will a Landmark AI Settlement Make Authors Feel Whole? The remuneration from Bartz v. Anthropic may not provide what writers really want: respect, recognition, and readers

@gruber.foo I thought you might appreciate this in-depth analysis of the Anthropic settlement—not only what it means for Anthropic and other big AI companies, but for authors and other creators: newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/land...

best piece I've read on this because it actually engages with the existing material incentives instead of just doing moral grandstanding.

A black and white photograph of library bookshelves in the dark

New issue of my newsletter: “Will a Landmark AI Settlement Make Authors Feel Whole?” — The remuneration from Bartz v. Anthropic may not provide what writers really want: respect, recognition, and readers

Will a Landmark AI Settlement Make Authors Feel Whole? The remuneration from Bartz v. Anthropic may not provide what writers really want: respect, recognition, and readers

My take on the landmark $1.5 billion settlement between authors and Anthropic: newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/land...

A sepia-toned photograph of a Romanesque Revival church with a tower

New issue of my newsletter: “The Stones of Newton” — A bell tower with a surprising name is in danger of falling

AI and Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Loosely Coupled A new framework provides a way for cultural heritage institutions to take advantage of the technology with fewer misgivings, and to serve students, scholars, and the public better

New issue of my newsletter: “AI and Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Loosely Coupled"—A new framework provides a way for cultural heritage institutions to take advantage of the tech with fewer misgivings, and to serve students, scholars, and the public better newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/ai-a...

New issue of my newsletter: “AI and Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Loosely Coupled”—
A new framework provides a way for cultural heritage institutions to take advantage of the technology with fewer misgivings, and to serve students, scholars, and the public better