AI Model Opus 5.5 Uncovers a Lost 1615 Account of Dodo Hunting
Using Opus 5.5 to discover a new eyewitness record of the dodo
Historian Benjamin Breen describes using the AI model Opus 5.5 to search the Dutch East India Company archives, where it found a previously unnoticed 1615 ship's log that mentions catching dodos. The model also surfaced a possible new reference to the extinct red rail and a theory linking a Portuguese Jesuit's 1616 'ostrich' to the dodo painted for Mughal Emperor Jahangir. Breen argues AI excels at tireless archival searching but still needs human experts to ask the right questions and judge significance.
The main thing that contemporary AI can do for historical research is, in effect, the digital equivalent of counting sheep. Because they never get bored, they can search through enormous datasets to find new evidence for existing claims (or, potentially, disprove them).