iSchool Research Symposium: Ted Underwood
Title: How Digital Humanists are Contending with Deep Learning
Abstract: The field of digital humanities spent much of the 2010s proving that relatively simple forms of machine learning could advance questions that had long mattered in humanities disciplines. The effort may have succeeded, but if so, it had about six months to celebrate success before deep learning and generative AI radically changed the opportunity environment for humanists. This talk will survey several different ways of adapting to the changed environment. I’ll suggest that instead of plugging new methods into old questions, the field may need to basically rethink its goals.
Speaker Bio: Ted Underwood explores questions that cross the boundary between digital humanities and computational social science. He is the author of three books on literary history—most recently Distant Horizons (Chicago, 2019)—but also publishes in venues that include Sociological Science, Public Books, and the ACL Anthology.