Ex-historian here, now an engineer. Ben is one of the few historians really thinking in depth about the implications of LLMs for historical research and teaching: both the good (wow, they are really great at transcribing difficult handwritten documents now; you can use Claude Code to vibe code up quick visualizations for your research or teaching that would have taken weeks of work before), and the bad (students submitting AI-generated essays). Highly recommended reading.
It's also nice to see a working historian who posts to HN. (If there are any others, please raise your hand!) Our community is richer for the wide variety of non-engineering professions represented here, from medical doctors to truckers to woodworkers to pilots to farmers. Please keep posting, all of you.
I wouldn't call myself a historian, but I have been doing a history podcast since 2014.
I agree that Ben's writings on LLMs and how they impact the humanities/history are great reads. But I am also the perfect target market for that kind of discussion, dev by day amateur historian by night.
I write about Indian history as my side project.
https://a.co/d/guvUxgq
https://a.co/d/iSg4jKZ