Some quick thoughts from two panels at the Florida Digital Humanities Consortium, hosted at University of Central Florida!
Panel: AI + Language
“Revitalizing Ladino: Harnessing AI to Preserve an Endangered Language”
Shai Cohen, University of Miami
Shai Cohen, University of Miami
• Cohen talks about how many different versions there are of the language due to the spread of the people – but if that’s the case, then what version of Ladino are you saving? Truly preserving a language if only one version is saved?
• Using AI/tech to save a language without a recognized or homogenized language? Just invent a new one!
• Not only AI being used to teach, but the human element still involved: YouTube streams each week to speak it. In addition, AI offers specialized tools to learn and “probably by the end of the talk there will be two more tools”. (Cohen)
“New Historicism, Distant Reading, and Database Research”
Mark L. Kamarath, UCF
Mark L. Kamarath, UCF
• New historicism very interesting concept – feels anthropological? Tiny things can show broader cultural implications; IE “end racism” as a bumper sticker can indicate the current social concerns
• As computational analysis as I am, like the idea of using tools like word clouds and social network analysis. Can help with finding associations that may not have noticed otherwise, particularly without lots of red twine and a corkboard.
• Really good thought to underline research: what is the norm? Once you know that, you can find what falls outside of it. New questions, new answers.
• Accidentally shared a different version of unreliability in AI: “this is not the answer I received yesterday” (Kamarath)
“Using Exploratory Programming to Study the Impacts of Templates on Professional Writing at an Indie Video Game Hosting Platform”
Matthew Bryan, UCF
Matthew Bryan, UCF
• Interesting thought: how do templates change what we do/don’t include. Basic technology that we may not consider consciously, but obviously makes an impact. “Poss range of interactions are authored for us by templates” John Gallagher.
• Any sort of decision made in research is not “just” a decision; you are always making a choice.
• When using certain data, ethical concerns crop up. People didn’t agree to having this work being used for research purposes. But again! This always brings us back to our “normal” sources: no one agreed to their private docs being used for research, yet we don’t question it.
Panel: Visualizing Religious Networks with the PRINT Project
“Creating Research Interfaces to Render Meaningful Networks with Complex Information”
Justin Harper, UCF
Justin Harper, UCF
• Says that working on this project is like “building a plane in flight.” But isn’t that kind of all digital history? Lol
• Keyword accessibility for today’s researchers: you have to consider what phrasing people would use now for what people would say then. IE appointment/position
• In relation to standardization of names in the database, a great question from the audience – how do they choose the name? Leads to other questions too; what form are you using? Is there Western/general bias in the naming scheme?
“The Small Worlds of Swarthmoor: A Network Analysis of the Abraham Quaker Manuscripts”
Maggie Woods, UCF
Maggie Woods, UCF
• Once again, outcomes aren’t incidental, people are making choices from aesthetics to the data included or left out.
• “Don’t want to reduce…to statistics.” Thank you! A big pitfall I can see if forgetting that there are people behind these pieces of papers and graphs. Hard to remember faces when all we have are jellyfish graphs (even if they are very pretty to look at).
• Knowledge of how to “translate” data is so helpful. IE taking information from historians to data people and information from there back.
“Designing a Flexible Geospatial Mapping Platform: Challenges, Key Values, Tools and Processes”
Kayla Campana, UCF
Kayla Campana, UCF
• Talks about PRINT’s key values: adaptability, transparency, accessibility. Yes yes yes! We need so much more of this in history and digital spaces in general. Disclose those biases!
• More focus on making the research, such as keywords usage, accessible to today's researchers. Love this focus on accessibility, but wonder where else that could be applied to make the data more widely available?
• Would love there to be more talk about adapting. How long has project been going on and how has it adapted over the years? History of the history, haha.