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Historian of the ancient world. Working on imperialism, elite competition, Global Assyria. North Carolinian.

Christopher W. Jones

PS - how did I figure out the correct number? By taking the interest due that is recorded later in the text and multiplying it by a common interest rate: Interest due: 2 ban. Common rates: 20%, 33% 10 ban = 1 bariga 4 ban (6 ban = 1 bariga) Google that, find other tablets with same sign combo. Win.

Either way, LLMs are useless for most humanities research. And I mean, fundamentally, structurally useless. Unfixable. Not the right tool for the job. Like trying to change your car tire with a pair of pliers.

Now, imagine if I had: a) Cited the articles without reading them, based on the AI summary? b) Gone ahead and published a translation that someone was borrowing a šar-gal of sesame seed? (a) introduces false information to the scholarly record; (b) just makes me look like an idiot.

As my adviser taught me: "always do the math when you're translating an economic text!"

Google AI pops up with a detailed answer: - šar-gal is a really big number (216,000, I knew that), much larger than most loans (I knew that too). - "This would be unusual. Here's a few suggestions:" 1) It's a temple loan. "Only temples loan that much." Links to several studies of temple loans.

2) It represents infinity debt, that someone will never be able to pay back. Provides links to irrelevant articles about the Ur III bala system that don't actually say this. OK, I thought, (2) seems useless but there's hardly any real search results, so I might as well try (1).

I look up the articles. Read them. None of them actually say this. Can't find any example of šar-gal used as a measure of capacity, only land area (sometimes same words are used for both, it's not that far fetched). Eventually figure out the correct reading on my own. Time wasted by AI: ~1 hour?

Claim: "AI is going to help scholars do research faster than ever" Fact: I was translating an OB economic text (outside my usual wheelhouse). I can't figure out amount of grain for a loan. One source suggests sign might be read "šar-gal." Google "šar-gal in Old Babylonian loan documents"