Holocaust testimony is AI litmus test, and it fails
ITHACA, N.Y. — As academics increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence (AI) for research and analysis, its inability to capture the emotional and ethical depth of witness testimony risks reshaping how history is recorded and understood, a Cornell historian warns.
When Jan Burzlaff, a postdoctoral associate in the Jewish Studies Program and an expert on Nazi Germany, asked ChatGPT to summarize the testimony of Luisa D., a seven-year-old Holocaust survivor, the large language model omitted a harrowing detail: her mother had cut her own finger to feed her dying child drops of blood — ...