Enquiring Minds Want To Know

A few days ago, I received a “like” message from WordPress saying that “Admin” from a WordPress site called “The Autodidact Professor” liked a recent blog I wrote. Nearly all of the “like” messages I see are just other sites trying to sell me something and I disregard them. The Autodidact Professor didn’t fit that mold. It’s unique and different.

First, it’s a straightforward history website. I’ve read a few of the pages now and it’s reliable, but uncontroversial, straight-up history. I’ve checked out details from my own knowledge and other history web sites. It’s pretty good stuff. There is a lot of history information out there, but it’s usually quite idiosyncratic. This isn’t.

Second, there is nothing I can find about the site itself. There is no “About” link. No “Contact Us” link. No email address. Subscriptions are completely free and nothing about them tries to rope you in to anything else. There aren’t even any ads on the site.

Third, the level of quality, both writing and illustrations, is good and very uniform. The illustrations, and there are at least three or four per blog, look like they were all done by the same artist. They all illustrate exactly what the blog is about.

And Fourth, there are quite a few history blogs at the site. It would be hard for any single person to do that. It would be hard for a whole organization to pump them out in the quantity that seems to be there.

So … What does this say to you?

To me, it says that some company is doing an AI project, just to sharpen their technology. History would be a good foundation since there’s plenty to feed the AI software and none of it is copyrighted. Maybe Automattic Inc. (that is, WordPress) is doing it. Maybe whoever is behind The Autodidact Professor will contact me and let me know what’s going on.

But if you just want to read some plain vanilla (that is, unbiased and standard) history, or if you want to see what AI can actually do, check it out! I think it’s really interesting.

(ps …. “Admin”, from The Autodidact Professor, “liked” this blog. That seems almost as good as a signed confession.)