How I Use AI as a Study Partner for Ancient Texts
Ask a chatbot for sayings from the Gospel of Thomas and you will get a generous list. Most of them will be real. One or two will be lovely, serene, perfectly on theme, and found nowhere in the Gospel of Thomas. The machine does not know it is lying, which is exactly what makes it dangerous to a student of ancient texts. I use AI to study these texts almost every day, and I am not giving that up. It is the most patient reading partner I have ever had, and the fastest. But the partnership only works under rules, and the rules took some burned fingers to learn. Here is the whole workflow, including the part where the partner gets caught inventing scripture. ...