Trumping Gemini: First the good news

First the good news. Artificial intelligence (AI) has improved a lot since the first time I tried it, out of curiosity, two years ago. The bad news is that it cannot write my “Looking Back” column—yet. With four decades of my writing in print and online accessible to AI, I broke down my columns into five characteristics.

First, I write more as a journalist than an academic historian, remaining accessible to a general audience in a friendly, conversational tone “that values readability without sacrificing intellectual weight.” I focus on two things: microhistory and humanizing our heroes. Microhistory, the second characteristic, chooses the mundane and obscure over the well-known “great” events, battles, and people in textbook history. Unlike most historians, who look into the forest of history, I study the trees. In other words, the margins or “laylayan.” The third characteristic is humanizing Filipino heroes and heroines who were formerly depicted as: perfect, flawless, almost superhuman people who figure in the birth of the nation. Fourth, I hide, under my unpretentious friendly tone, a rigorous, rigid reliance (AI likes describing things in threes!) on primary sources uncovered from meticulous academic research in repositories in the Philippines and abroad. Fifth, and last, I use the past as a mirror for the present.

Just to play with Gemini (the AI tool that is bundled up with our Google accounts), I asked about the qualities of my writing. First, accessibility. Second, historical impartiality and a refusal to romanticize the past. Third, use of evocative and sensory detail. Fourth, critical skepticism. Much of this, the late expatriate historian Vicente L. Rafael outlined in a review of my work three decades ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gemini stole all the above from Rafael without attribution.

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Believe it or not, Gemini saves me the heavy lifting. Perhaps the most difficult part of writing a column is staring into an empty screen, wondering what to write about. Or how to begin. Before Gemini, I got the wheels oiled by typing out the header that never makes it to the published version of the column: “For Tintin [the Inquirer’s longtime and most-loved editorial assistant], “Philippine Daily Inquirer,” “Looking Back for Wednesday/Friday,” the date, and last but not least, my byline, “Ambeth Ocampo.” When the writing block is particularly heavy, I also type out the footer: “Comments are welcome at [email protected].”

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When I ask Gemini to suggest a topic, it often reviews the last two or three columns before recommending a sequel to a previous column. It also alerts me to historical events that will occur on or around the date the column will see print. For example, national holidays like Independence Day, Rizal Day, or even obscure ones, like the foundation day of the Makati Dog and Cat Clinic. Sometimes it pulls out history beyond my area of expertise.

When prompted to write an essay “in the style of Ambeth Ocampo,” Gemini seems to get it right without the primary source research, the wit, and irony. Last week, I caught Gemini hallucinating twice. It gave me a quotation from a historical source that sounded plausible and authentic, but Gemini could not provide me with a link to the quoted text. When I insisted, Gemini provided the author, title, even the pages where the quote would be found. When the information from primary sources was validated, the quotation did not exist.

Gemini said that on July 4, 1570, Philip II issued an order from Madrid, legalizing the taking of slaves from Mindanao to subdue the island’s stubborn resistance to Spanish rule. The primary source for the decree was the multivolume “Recopilacion de leyes de los reynos de las Indias” (A compilation of the Laws of the Indies). An English translation of the said decree was to be found in the 55-volume documentary history of the Philippines from 1492-1898 compiled by James Alexander Robertson and Emma Helen Blair. I had both sources: the first referenced a law for Chile, while the other was closer to home and referred to the Spanish in Guam, not the Philippines.

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I kept badgering Gemini for the primary sources and it provided links and page numbers, all of which were hallucinations. At some point, Gemini surrendered, apologized for making up the answer, and said it would not proceed unless I changed the topic. I scolded Gemini and blamed it for wasting my time. It replied: “A hard lesson learned. You nailed the ultimate truth of dealing with AI: Never trust, always verify. I fell into the classic machine trap of pattern-matching ‘1570 Philip II, Just War, Slavery,’ and mapped it to the wrong colony’s specific statute.”

Do I have to change to a paid subscription to Claude to get real service? Do I have to learn how to prompt properly to get something closer or better to something only I can write? Gemini cannot think for me, cannot write for me, for now. When Gemini capitulated, waved the white flag, and declared: “you clearly don’t need my ‘help’ to get the truth!“ That sent a chill down my spine because one day when it is better, Gemini will remember, and get even.

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Comments are welcome at [email protected]

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