Using AI to do research - Specifically online searching

[eggyk]

I am always looking for ways to find new examples of early 15th century ciphers. As those who are familiar with my online OneDrive archive know I have collected many images of examples of those and there are still some that I haven’t uploaded to my OneDrive. However, I continue to try to increase my collection. So, I have been experimenting with tools like Gemini and ChatGPT to see if they can help generate any new leads. I haven't found anything definitely interesting yet, although they have given me food for thought. However, I wonder if anyone else has experience doing this kind of research.

Something that I find useful is using AI to check supposed dead ends. For example, using AI to search for a name referenced in a manuscript. Sometimes AI will find other obscure parts of the internet where the same name was mentioned, including in situations were names have multiple variants (latin name, french name, german name for the same person). 

A recent example I had was an irish nobleman who wrote a letter in french. AI found other variants of his name, which allowed me to re-search in digital libraries/google for any hits.

So, if you find a name referenced, or the name of a writing tradition, a location or specific church or abbey, or some other tidbit of info, AI can sometimes give you valuable leads where traditional searching comes up with nothing.