Benjamin Breen asks AI labs to fund historians' frontier-model research

The UC Santa Cruz historian argues for collaborations around tractable archival questions, drawing on early experiments in alchemy, cryptography and historical texts.

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Primary source: Res Obscura

Why it matters

Breen's examples show how frontier models could help historians search across languages and source collections, while the Enigma case leaves a concrete problem for researchers: a correct answer can still have an uncertain research path.

Close-up of hands wearing a long-sleeved shirt, carefully examining an old document through a magnifying glass on a wooden table, with shelves of books and a laptop in the background.

Benjamin Breen wants AI labs, historians and funders to collaborate on research using frontier models, from tracing alchemical texts to testing old ciphers. The UC Santa Cruz historian made the case in a September 24th essay, describing early work with GPT-6 models and Claude Opus 5.5 and arguing that researchers should try using them to solve historical problems, not only transcribe and…

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