Evaluating ChatGPT as a Source: Productivity Growth in the Industrial Revolution

Extract

[...] Evaluating ChatGPT as a Source: Productivity Growth in the Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution marked a pivotal shift in economic productivity driven by technological innovations. There is an ongoing debate about which sectors experienced the most substantial productivity gains from 1750 to 1850. To assess ChatGPT's capabilities as a source for economic history, I engaged the language model in a dialogue centered on the question: "Was productivity growth during the Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) mostly confined to textiles, coal, and iron?" The great epoch of enormous advancements in technology and economic structure within human history occurred from the late 18th to early 19th century, the period of the Industrial Revolution (Hwang et al., 2023). [...]

[...] By grounding its response in specific numerical data from a reputable economic history source, ChatGPT demonstrated an ability to leverage quantitative evidence rather than relying solely on qualitative claims. This bodes well for its utility as a source when precise historical measurements are required. However, one area for improvement arose in ChatGPT's grasp of periodization (Hwang et al., 2023). When I asked about productivity growth rates broken down into sub-periods between 1750-1850, it stated it did not have detailed numbers for specific sub-periods. [...]

[...] To conclude the interrogation, I asked ChatGPT to directly state its overall assessment of whether productivity growth in the Industrial Revolution was concentrated in textiles, coal, and iron or more broad-based. Its response: "Based on the available evidence, my assessment argues that the Industrial Revolution's rise in productivity was heavily concentrated in the textile, coal, and iron industries, particularly in the early decades between 1750 and 1850 (Javaid et al., 2023). While there were improvements in other sectors like transportation, agriculture, and some manufacturing processes, the gains in textiles, coal, and iron appear to have been more dramatic and played a more pivotal role in driving the overall Industrial Revolution" (Hwang et al., 2023). [...]

[...] While ChatGPT may provide a good starting point for general information regarding productivity growth during the Industrial Revolution, it is to be regarded only as supplementary information, at which point the sourcing should be critically evaluated and fact-checked against primary and scholarly literature (Hwang et al., 2023). This is not to be relied on as the sole source for a complete or up-to-date understanding of such an important historical topic. References Broadberry, S., Campbell, B. M., Klein, A., Overton, M., & van Leeuwen, B. [...]

[...] S., Pradhan, B., Choudhury, T., & Schlueter, S. (2023). How does ChatGPT evaluate the value of spatial information in the 4th Industrial Revolution? Spatial Information Research, 1-8. Javaid, M., Haleem, A., & Singh, R. P. (2023). A study on ChatGPT for Industry 4.0: Background, potentials, challenges, and eventualities. Journal of Economy and Technology, 1, 127-143. [...]