Talk
Magical Meaning Machines
This practical workshop will explore the opportunities for new kinds of digital scholarship in the humanities and social sciences presented by Large Language Models. It will present Large Language Models as a new kind of machine for processing semantic information in text with a completely new kind of capabilities and also new kinds of limitations. It will then explore what new opportunities these new machines present for digital scholarship based on practical examples. These opportunities lie not only in using Large Language Models as tools to assist with text data but also as a new kind of object to study.
The workshop is focused on enabling scholars in the humanities to get started with using Large Language Models in their work - no prior experience or knowledge is required. It will combine brief explanations and case studies with hands-on activities.