It strikes me reading this, that edited archives of author's works is an antiquated concept. I can understand that back in the 1800s (or even the 1930s) having a giant box of paper would have been daunting to sort out, prepare for publication and then release. But in 2024? It seems ridiculous. Dump it all in SQLite and put it onto the Internet. Let AI sort it out.
I really wish a lot of antique content was available this way. I like to watch YouTube channels like Esoterica [1] and often he will lament that scholarly editions of ancient works are either unavailable or only available with much effort at exorbitant prices. We are living in a time where I should be able to have access to the entire Nag Hammadi library as high quality images that I can feed into an LLM for casual analysis. Imagine the entire Vatican Library available in a format similar to The Pile.
What a treasure it would be to have an LLM that is trained on every single piece of philosophical, religious, political, economic, etc. writing from the earliest Sumerian clay tablets to the current copyright cut-off date.
I really wish a lot of antique content was available this way. I like to watch YouTube channels like Esoterica [1] and often he will lament that scholarly editions of ancient works are either unavailable or only available with much effort at exorbitant prices. We are living in a time where I should be able to have access to the entire Nag Hammadi library as high quality images that I can feed into an LLM for casual analysis. Imagine the entire Vatican Library available in a format similar to The Pile.
What a treasure it would be to have an LLM that is trained on every single piece of philosophical, religious, political, economic, etc. writing from the earliest Sumerian clay tablets to the current copyright cut-off date.
1. https://www.youtube.com/@TheEsotericaChannel