Richard Albrecht
Doctoral researcher at the FSTM
Richard works on the project ‘EXPLAINABLE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN DIGITAL HISTORY‘ under the supervision of Leon van der Torre
Richard is a member of the DTU Board
The recent emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and its capability to analyse texts provides new opportunities to analyse and interact with the past. However, AI models are often black boxes which are not interpretable by a human user. This opacity creates concern about the reliability of any given output by an AI-driven system. Explainable AI aims to make AI models more interpretable and transparent, thereby enabling users to not only trust but also fully understand the AI-driven analyses and conclusions.
AI in digital history is currently used for digitising historical documents, identifying patterns within extensive datasets and predictive models for understanding historical phenomena. For the task of interpreting historical data, transparency of AI systems and the interpretability of any given result is necessary to use the systems to derive new historical insights.
Overall, this PhD project underscores the necessity of accountability and clarity in the use of AI for historical purposes, paving the way for future developments in this interdisciplinary area. It aims to foster a better understanding of how Explainable AI can be harnessed to enrich our comprehension and engagement with history in the digital age.