TimeCapsuleLLM: LLM trained only on data from 1800-1875

Re:TimeCapsuleLLM: LLM trained only on data from 1800-1875 by friendzis on Tuesday January 13, 2026 @02:27AM (#46598182)

I understand where you are coming from, but not every field is hard science. In many fields we deal with some amount of randomness and attribute causality to correlations even if we do not have as much as a speculative hypothesis for a mechanism of action behind the supposed causality.

LLMs trained on data up to a strictly constrained point are our best vehicle to have a view (however biased) on something, detached from its origins and escape a local minima. The speculation is that such LLMs could help us look at correlational links accepted as truths and help us devise an alternative experimental path or craft arguments for such experiments.

Imagine you have an LLM trained on papers up to some threshold, feed your manuscript with correlational evidence and have an LLM point out uncontrolled confounders or something like that.

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Re:TimeCapsuleLLM: LLM trained only on data from 1800-1875 by hare2eternity on Tuesday January 13, 2026 @05:28AM (#46599250)

Outside of science it would be an interesting pedagogic tool for many people. There is a tendency to imagine that people in the past saw the world much the same as we do. The expression "the past is a foreign country" resonates because we can empathise at some level that things were different, but we can't visit that country. "Talking" to a denizen of London in 1910 regarding world affairs, gender equality, economic opportunities, etc would be very interesting. Even if it can never be entirely accurate I think it would be enlightening.

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