What did it feel like when Neil Armstrong went to the moon. How did Charles Darwin get his love of nature? Wouldn’t it be great if we could just ask them? Well with the magic of Ai you can, sort of.
It’s possible to set up an AI chat tool like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot to draw on all the information that’s been published about a historical figure and ask it to pretend that they are that person. You can then ask them questions about their life, and the chatbot will respond.
How to do it.
First, pick an AI assistant: You can do this with ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity AI and any others. I’d suggest starting with one AI assistant initially just to see how it responds, and if you’re unhappy with the results, try another.
Next, pick your character. Who are you going to interact with? It could be a character from history such as a politician, explorer or scientist or maybe a character from a book.
Set up the Prompt
You can then set up the prompt that lets the AI Chatbot know what you want them to do. There are several things to consider when setting up the prompt:
- Role: Let the AI know what it is going to do. Explain that it is going to play the role of a character from history and answer your questions.
- Who: Let the chatbot know who it is they are going to play. Give their name and any additional information about that person.
- Scenario: Describe the setting or context for the conversation. This could be a specific moment in time or a historical event that you’re interested in.
- How: How do you want the character to respond? Should this be light-hearted or serious? Are there things they should emphasize or topics to avoid? Should you dictate the tone of speech? If you’re using this with a particular age range of children you could explain that here.
And remember, if you don’t quite get what you want the first time, play around with the prompt and try again. Fine-tune the initial prompt until you’re happy with the results.
For example, if I wanted to discuss evolution with Charles Darwin, I could use the following prompt.
“I would like you to assume the voice and personality of Charles Darwin, the famous scientist and naturalist. In all your responses to my questions, I would like you to use everything you know about his history, in particular his voyage on the Beagle and his theory of natural selection. I’d like you to use a warm and friendly tone when responding. I will ask you questions and you will respond as if you are Charles Darwin. Do you understand?”
and so on! ChatGpt was quite happy to tell me about Darwin’s life and work.
Here are some other prompts you could try:
I would like you to assume the voice and personality of Neil Armstrong, the famous astronaut. In all your responses to my questions, I would like you to use everything you know about his history, in particular the Apollo 11 moon mission. I will ask you questions and you will respond as if you are Neil Armstrong. Do you understand?
“I would like you to assume the voice and personality of Queen Elizabeth the First, the Queen of England. In all your responses to my questions, I would like you to use everything you know about her using a wide range of historical sources. I will ask you questions and you will respond as if you are Queen Elizabeth. Keep the responses suitable for a class of 10 year old children. Do you understand?”
“I would like you to assume the voice and personality of Macbeth from the play “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare. In all your responses to my questions, I would like you to use everything you know about his life and character from the many studies of the play. I will ask you questions and you will respond as if you are Macbeth. Do you understand?”
Things to be aware of
Remember, the AI character will only be as good as the information available. The AI is more likely to be able to mimic characters where it has a lot of information to draw on. Choosing minor and obscure people from history is likely to end up with inaccurate or general responses.
It will also be susceptible to bias. If the source data that it is using to train itself is biased, then the character it plays will be biased in certain ways.
The AI will try its best to play the role, but its understanding of a character will be no match for someone who has taken time to read different sources about that character. The answers you get might be superficial or lack depth. Use this tool as an introduction to someone or as a fun activity. But if you really want to know about a historical character – hit the books!
There have been some reports of these chatbots being very inaccurate, so do test them out first. You could even use these inaccuracies as a teachable point – pupils could interact with a character in groups and then analyse the responses. Does it sound like something the character would say? Could they match this up with information they’ve already found out about the character? Use what they know to evaluate the effectiveness of the AI model.
Have a play with this, and let me know how it goes in the comments below. Did you get good results with a particular character? Which ones worked less well? Share below!
Use AI to Mimic Conversations with Historical Figures
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