Artificial Intelligence in archival and historical scholarship workflow:
  HTS and ChatGPT
Salvatore Spina
This article examines the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the archival
heritage digitization processes, specifically regarding the manuscripts'
automatic transcription, their correction, and normalization. It highlights how
digitality has compelled scholars to redefine Archive and History field and has
facilitated the accessibility of analogue sources through digitization and
integration into big data. The study focuses on two AI systems, namely
Transkribus and ChatGPT, which enable efficient analysis and transcription of
digitized sources. The article presents a test of ChatGPT, which was utilized
to normalize the text of 366 letters stored in the Correspondence section of
the Biscari Archive (Catania). Although the AI exhibited some limitations that
resulted in inaccuracies, the corrected texts met expectations. Overall, the
article concludes that digitization and AI can significantly enhance archival
and historical research by allowing the analysis of vast amounts of data and
the application of computational linguistic tools.