Is the advance of AI good or bad for history?

As artificial intelligence penetrates almost every aspect of our lives, six historians debate whether the opportunities it offers to the discipline outweigh the threats

- COMPILED BY JONATHAN WRIGHT

Artificial intelligence isn't inherently good or bad.

Like the printing press or the written word itself, AI is a force and whether it enhances or undermines historical practice will depend on who uses it, how, and why.

Al's most obvious advantage is that it can process vast amounts of data much faster than your regular historian, which turns it into an incredible asset. The trick here is to use it as it was originally meant to be used - not to replace human interpretation but to identify patterns that humans might not notice and, thus, to enable us to come up with better, more nuanced questions.

But it goes beyond that. Al is forcing historians to rethink what constitutes evidence, authorship and interpretation.

In doing so, it is not just supporting existing historical methods, it's helping evolve them.

Though I am not worried that historians will be replaced by AI any time soon, there is a risk that indiscriminate use might flatten out the practice. Good history requires doubt, contradiction, ambivalence, even uncertainty, but AI models are designed to produce smooth answers even when the data is messy or the past is unknowable.

Moreover, history isn't just knowledge - it's a method of knowing. If AI shortcuts the method, it threatens the discipline's integrity. There is little doubt that AI will be part of historical research, but it is crucial that historians shape its use to enhance rather than undermine our craft. We should resist the urge to scale for scale's sake, and instead use AI to deepen, not dilute, historical understanding. If we do that, and embed AI within the discipline's values - critical thinking, reflexivity, contextual awareness - then historians will become central in answering the question of whether AI is good or bad for history.