Allen R
- Research Program Mentor
PhD at Stanford University
Expertise
projects that combine computing/programming and literature, language, or history; myth, ancient literature, Ancient Greek, Latin; analyzing language and literature with AI; linguistics
Bio
I'm a former Classics and digital humanities professor turned technology entrepreneur and AI developer. As a professor, I taught everything from ancient literature and languages, myth and culture, and the history of technology, to programming, web development, and AI. My special expertise is in Ancient Greek language and literature, myth, and the computational study of language. Right now I'm co-founder of a technology startup that builds AI-powered software and have worked in a variety capacities building products powered by machine learning, LLMs, and emerging tools around "generative AI." Whatever the topic, I'm as excited to dig into the details of a particular literary work or feature of language as I am to help build something new at the intersection of technical domains and humanistic research. I grew up near Philadelphia and have lived in Chicago, north Florida, and now the San Francisco Bay Area. When I was in high school I thought I would end up being a theoretical physicist -- or a movie director. On the side I play saxophone and clarinet, write a bit, and repair an occasional typewriter.Project ideas
LLMs and the study of Literature
In this project you use large language models to study features of literature of your choice. Whether it's analyzing character or language or digging into the history of ideas, we will work to tailor a project that combines both the technical and the humanistic for innovative ends. This project can lean heavily technical if that's your interest and background or we can focus primarily on the literary and add a small measure of digital methods. It can be a framework to go deep on machine learning and computational linguistics, the technologies underlying things like ChatGPT and we can start at whatever level is appropriate to your existing interests and skills, whether expert or novice.
Ancient World Expert AI
In this project you'll train a computer AI to teach your fellow students about some part of the ancient world. Perhaps you'll create an expert AI in ancient myth, or Greek drama, or Ancient Egyptian history. You'll learn a lot more about your chosen subject area (remember, AI often lies, even when it sounds like it knows what it's doing) and gain skills in researching and understanding the ancient world. At the same time this project will teach you some programming basics and give you practical wisdom about both the opportunities and the risks of current AI.
Ancient Literature Deep Dive
You choose any work of literature from the ancient world (or the middle ages) and we delve deep on a particular aspect of the work. You can produce a research report and build high level research skills. Or, if you are creatively inclined, we can focus on helping you produce your own translation (even if you don't know the language of the original). In the process you would learn about translation studies and can start learning the basics of the original language as well as producing your own interpretation of the ancient work.
Yesterday's Technology Today
In this project you create a history of technology podcast. You research and learn about the way that new technologies impact our understanding of old technologies. Choose a non-current technology, whether recent (for example, typewriters, film camera, retro computing, etc.), older (quill and parchment books, owl post), or ancient (papyrus, clay tablets, etc.); then we tackle the big idea of how our modern technological world impacts our take on the previous world. You present your research as a podcast or a more retro audio product. In addition to learning about and researching the history of technology, you also can try your hand at audio production.