AI Research Assistant?
Not sure I like this or can get on board. Too many people getting lazy with AI in many areas of life and this just opens the door now for people to click and collect without doing any kind of valuable research. Bad idea in my opinion.
Answers
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@StephenDespot - I share your concerns about click and collect, but how is this different from ordinary hints? If the answer is that the AI produced hints are significantly worse than hints produced using conventional algorithms, then there needs to be feedback from us about specifics.
So, since I have never touched these AI hints, my question to the Community would be: How do we give feedback on this mechanism?
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To provide feedback on the AI Research Assistant, there is a dedicated group here on Community that anyone can join: AI Enhanced Help Center Searches, Ask A Help Chatbot, AI Research Assistant
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I see multiple Rootstech Online sessions. Would be worth tuning in….
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I still am against it. AI is making people lazy and unable to think for themselves. I just don't like it, especially in this type of research. We got enough problems trying to police our branches from errors every day and I'm afraid this is just going to muddy the waters everywhere.
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@StephenDespot I understand what you are saying. AI is now "the way of the world," in FamilySearch and everywhere. Have you considered turning the experiment off so it does not show on your personal pages? At least you won't have to look at it! https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/
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Unfortunately, turning the experiment off doesn't keep us from seeing the product. I've recently seen the profiles of my direct and close family "decorated" with AI Discussions that have no factual basis.
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Áine Ní Donnghaile
- Oh no, that's not good.
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AI is going to ruin the world and how things are done, including Family Research. We're looking at sad times ahead I'm afraid.
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After watching the last class about a month ago about using AI in our Family History Research (that is on YouTube, created by FamilySearch) , I am sold! It was such a good class, and using AI to assist me in answering questions on the migration patterns of my ancestors (4 times great-grandfather was a hemp mill worker, according to one of his biographies on FS) I put that information in to ChatGPT and found that there were hemp mills/factories in each of the three locations where my ancestors moved between, which were in a 30 mile radius of eachother. Mystery solved. It also showed me where to find additional information about those mills and that one of them still has payroll records that might contain my ancestor. It has helped my husband and I on other family lines where we have brick walls, by putting in what information we have, and it helps to find new resources. I even uploaded six pictures of my 4 times great grandfather's children, and asked ChatGPT to create a picture of these grandparents based on the features of their children, and it did! I think that AI is going to help us in so many ways with our Family History research, and I am grateful!
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@DanetteBennett said
"… using AI to assist me in answering questions on the migration patterns of my ancestors … I put that information in to ChatGPT and found that there were hemp mills/factories in each of the three locations where my ancestors moved between, which were in a 30 mile radius of each other. …"
That's not the first time that I've seen migration patterns mentioned as successfully highlighted by AI.
I don't have a problem with those sorts of things, as they are very much approximations - the answer is (at best) about likelihoods.
Hints, on the other hand, need to be explicitly and precisely determined - it's no good if an AI hint suggests Aloysius Bucket's father is Septimius Bucket simply because the only other Aloysius Bucket in the system has a father named Septimius. (The example is not intended to be precise). After all, this is what pattern recognition is about - it's not about logic…
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Here's an example of a recent AI-assisted post attached to one of my direct ancestors, a 2nd GGF.
The "logic" applied would indicate that the family of @Adrian Bruce1 identifies as the Bruce1 family these days. A FamilySearch display name has been interpreted as a family surname. (Apologies, Adrian, for using your username as an example.)
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Well, we're all agreed on AI, it's a hate/love relationship, for sure and between us and the gatepost, I'm sick of hearing about how there could be a child missing simply because someone went more than 3 years without a viable pregnancy surely its possible that women in any century had other things to do!😂🤣 And then of course, we have all the hints/names of who that poor child could possibly be! Sorry, if I'm rattling on a bit, but I woke up this morning to find that my hardwood floors are soaked thru! Don't worry, we buy insurance for this very reason — even when we live in a desert!
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@maryellenstevensbarnes1 '…. surely its possible that women in any century had other things to do!…'
Made me laugh!!! Sorry about your problems though. Not that you don't have other things on your 'list' to get done. Hang in there
Mark
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@Adrian Bruce1 - I agree, and I get exactly what you are saying. And it is very important to fact check what the AI websites are saying, the websites themselves tell you to fact check. There have been times AI has made erroneous assumptions, and I have corrected what it has come up with, so that hopefully we are headed in an accurate direction. I appreciate so much the ideas AI gives me of where to look next. There's family lines now that don't feel like brick walls, AI is slowly helping me chip away at them.
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@Áine.ní.Donnghaile - I find your example disturbing for two reasons. Firstly the "assumption" by the AI that a "user name" is a person's real name (in many cases, it is, of course, which is why, I guess, the AI has been trained to make the assumption).
Secondly, by associating your "user name" with an ancestor, it's given a strong indication of your parentage (depending on how frequent "Ni Donnghaile" is as part of a "user name"). This is surely a gross breach of privacy and even laws.
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I should clarify that the other contributor said she used ChatGPT rather than the FamilySearch AI Research Assistant.
Sadly, those ChatGPT items added were mostly inaccurate.
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@Áine.ní.Donnghaile - ah, thanks for that, so it sounds like FamilySearch are innocent in this instance. Phew…
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