Challenges or Opportunities: When Artificial Intelligence is Applied to Digital Humanities

Abstract

The aim of this review is to provide a dialectical reflection on the phenomenon of using AI tools to digital humanities, especially in academic writing, and a series of scenarios for the way of applying AI to digital humanities in future. To write this review, I give direct instructions to ChatGPT to generate a 2000-word essay, which defines the digital humanities and describes the field. Then, in the review, I analyze the argument, argumentation methodology and data of the essay. Through these analyses, I conclude that AI is not a replacement for humans in future research and development of digital humanities, but the emergence of AI does make a difference in the way traditional academic writing is done. By a series of comparisons, I argue that AI tools provide new opportunities for digital humanities and suggest some possible ways for AI engagement in digital humanities scholarship.