We Humans Had a Good Run, Part II

Stephen C

1 month ago

Last night I was given access to Bing Search’s GPT-4

A couple months ago, when Chat-GPT3 first came out I posted about how it might change the Church landscape, and presented a sacrament meeting talk that GPT-3 had written. Several months before that I speculated about how natural language processing would lead to researchers in essence having their own on-hand research assistant.

With Chat-GPT4 it looks like we’re kind-of-sort-of there, if your research assistant is a sloppy undergraduate.

I asked it to “Create a table of primary sources during Joseph Smith-era Nauvoo that were authored by women. Show 1) the author, 2) what the primary source is, 3) example text from the primary source, and 4) something interesting about the source.”

This is what it gave me (it’s hard to get the footnotes to play nice with the T&S website, so those are omitted and you’ll have to trust what I have to say about them):

Here is a table of some primary sources during Joseph Smith-era Nauvoo that were authored by women:

Author	Source	Example Text	Interesting Fact
Emma Smith	Minutes of the Nauvoo Relief Society ¹ ²	“We are going to do something extraordinary. . . . We expect extraordinary occasions and pressing calls.”²	She was the first president of the Relief Society and Joseph Smith’s wife.
Eliza R. Snow	Poems, Religious, Historical, and Political ¹ ²	“The voice of innocence is hush’d / The sobs of sorrow dim; / And martyrd virtue sleeps beneath / The ruthless hand of sin.”² (On the death of Joseph and Hyrum Smith)	She was a poet, a leader in the Relief Society, and a plural wife of Joseph Smith.
Lucy Mack Smith	History of Joseph Smith by His Mother ¹ ³	“I have never written one sentence which I could not substantiate by undoubted testimony.”³ (Preface)	She was Joseph Smith’s mother and wrote a biography of his life based on her memories and documents.

Do you want more examples or more details about these sources?

Yes, show me more examples

Here are some more examples of primary sources during Joseph Smith-era Nauvoo that were authored by women:

Sarah M. Cleveland	Minutes of the Nauvoo Relief Society ¹ ² ³	“I rejoice in this privilege. I have no doubt but that this Society is of divine origin.”² (March 17, 1842)	She was one of the counselors to Emma Smith in the Relief Society presidency and a plural wife of Joseph Smith.
Elizabeth Ann Whitney	History of Joseph Smith by His Mother ¹ ³	“I was present at a meeting where he [Joseph Smith] spoke in an unknown tongue; and David W. Patten interpreted, and told what he had said afterwards; it was according to our faith.”³ (Chapter 44)	She was one of the counselors to Emma Smith in the Relief Society presidency and a plural wife of Joseph Smith.
Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner	Autobiography ¹	“When I heard that God had revealed the law of Celestial marriage that we would have the privilege of associating in family relationships in the worlds to come, I searched the scriptures and by humble prayer to my Heavenly Father I obtained a testimony for myself that God had required that order to be established in his Church.” (Page 7)	She was a pioneer woman who saved some pages of the Book of Commandments from being destroyed and a plural wife of Joseph Smith.

Author	Source	Example Text	Interesting Fact
Vilate Kimball	Letters to Heber C. Kimball ¹ ²	“I have been to meeting this afternoon and heard Brother Joseph preach on the parable of the wheat and tares. He said it was not his prerogative to gather out the tares.”¹ (July 2, 1842)	She was the wife of Heber C. Kimball, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and wrote many letters to him while he was on missions.
Patty Bartlett Sessions	Diary ¹ ²	“I went with Joseph Smith & wife Emma & others in a waggon to Carthage. I saw him give himself up into their hands.”¹ (June 24, 1844)	She was a midwife who delivered many babies in Nauvoo and recorded her experiences in her diary. She was also a plural wife of Joseph Smith.
Helen Mar Kimball Whitney	Autobiography ¹ ²	“Without any preliminaries [my father] asked me if I would believe him if he told me that it was right for married men to take other wives…The first impulse was anger…My sensibilities were painfully touched.”² (Page 1)	She was the daughter of Heber C. Kimball and Vilate Kimball and a plural wife of Joseph Smith at age 14. She wrote an autobiography about her life and experiences with polygamy.

As you can see, it starts our reasonably accurate, but then becomes less so. First of all, many of the footnotes don’t actually correspond to what they claim to correspond to. Second, it gets some significant things wrong, e.g. Elizabeth Ann Whitney was not a plural wife of Joseph Smith. However, as a starting point for knowing what things to read or investigate, subject to external confirmation, it’s really not half bad. So again, it doesn’t look like historian RAs will be out of work quite yet, and like a lot of AI the latest language processing technology will be tools to complement, and not replace, historical or gospel research.