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  # A dataset of pre-1950 English text
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- This dataset is for training LLMs on old science, in order to quiz them about
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- current capabilities and developments. The goal is to explore how much
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- prompting an old-LLM would require in order to "invent" modern technology, with the
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- hope that this will inform how to get current LLMs to truly invent
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- next-generation technology.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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  # Data sources to investigate
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  # Cleaning up
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  List all file containing at least 1% lines of non-English characters (there's a
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  lot of Hebrew newspapers)
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  # A dataset of pre-1950 English text
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+ This is a high-quality thoroughly-curated 100+ GB dataset of English-only text
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+ written before 1950-01-01. It was collected for the purpose of training LLMs,
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+ initially a small 125M model (Archibald-125M) and later a 3B or 7B model
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+ (depending on funding).
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+
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+ ## Why train an LLM on old text?
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+
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+ One unanswered question about LLMs is "can they invent?". Given how much they
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+ know about the world, it's somewhat surprising that LLMs seem to have
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+ difficulty with making innovative connections about the world (although they
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+ get better every day).
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+
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+ Because Archibald-125M has a knowledge cutoff of 1950, we are able to quiz and
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+ prompt until Archie figures out something that's a novel invention for 1950 but
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+ well-established science in the current day. We can provide more detailed and
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+ more helpful hints to Archie until the answer is blindingly obvious, and then
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+ examine what is required for an LLM to make a discovery. Importantly, this
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+ process can be automated, using _modern_ LLMs to prompt and evaluate the
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+ outputs of Archie.
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+
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+ Beyond discovering the nature of invention, text before 1950 has several
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+ qualities which make it interesting:
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+
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+ - Significantly different data distribution. Almost all modern LLMs are trained
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+ on a corpus of data created mostly after the internet, and a majority of that
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+ is after the internet boom in the 2000s. Archibald is possibly the only LLM
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+ with a significantly different but still human-generated training distribution.
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+ - Archaic moral views: In the 1950s most women could not open bank accounts,
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+ sign leases, or own property in their name without a male guardian. Being
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+ homosexual was illegal, racial segregation was commonplace. Probing Archie
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+ about the morality of these points might provide insight into how we can
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+ probe modern LLMs about our modern moral failures.
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+
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+ The primary goal is to figure out the nature of invention, but it's likely
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+ there'll be many interesting side-quests along the way.
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+
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+ ## Some events after 1950 which Archibald-125M doesn't know about
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+
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+ - 1950: **First credit card** (Diners Club). Before this: People paid in cash or by cheque. Store credit was local, and debt tracking was manual.
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+ - 1952: **Polio vaccine** (Salk). Before this: Tens of thousands per year were paralyzed or killed by polio. Children avoided public swimming pools during outbreaks.
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+ - 1953: **Death of Stalin**. Before this: Stalin's dictatorship controlled the Soviet Union with mass purges and forced labor camps. Eastern Europe remained locked behind the Iron Curtain.
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+ - 1953: **Discovery of DNA structure** (Watson & Crick). Before this: Heredity was understood abstractly. No genetic engineering, paternity testing, or DNA forensics.
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+ - 1954: **Brown v. Board of Education** (USA). Before this: Racial segregation was legal in schools. Black children attended underfunded “separate but equal” schools.
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+ - 1955: **Rosa Parks arrested** / Bus boycott. Before this: Black passengers were legally forced to give up seats for white riders in much of the U.S. South.
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+ - 1957: **Launch of Sputnik**. Before this: No artificial satellites. Global communications were limited to undersea cables and radio. Weather forecasts were rudimentary.
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+ - 1958: **NASA founded**. Before this: No civilian space program. Military handled missile research; spaceflight was science fiction.
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+ - 1959: **First commercial photocopier** (Xerox 914). Before this: Copies were made with carbon paper, mimeographs, or by hand. Reproducing documents was slow and messy.
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+ - 1960: **First laser**. Before this: No barcode scanning, laser surgery, or optical fiber communication.
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+ - 1961: **Yuri Gagarin orbits Earth**. Before this: No human had been to space. Space exploration was theoretical; Earth was the only world we’d seen directly.
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+ - 1963: **Assassination of JFK**. Before this: U.S. politics was in a post-war optimism phase. After: Deepened Cold War tensions and conspiracy culture.
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+ - 1964: **U.S. Civil Rights Act**. Before this: Legal segregation and open discrimination in housing, employment, and voting. Jim Crow laws were enforced in the South.
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+ - 1965: **Moore’s Law** proposed. Before this: Computing power was scarce. Computers filled rooms, used punch cards, and served governments or large corporations.
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+ - 1967: **First heart transplant** (South Africa) Before this: End-stage heart failure meant death. No organ transplants; no immunosuppressive treatment.
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+ - 1969: **Apollo 11 Moon Landing**. Before this: The Moon was unreachable. Space travel was a Cold War dream and sci-fi trope.
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+ - 1971: **Intel 4004** (first commercial microprocessor). Before this: Computers were assembled from separate logic circuits. No personal computing. Embedded electronics were rare.
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+ - 1972: **Watergate** scandal begins. Before this: Presidential power was largely unchecked in public perception. The scandal triggered a wave of investigative journalism and public distrust.
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+ - 1973: **First mobile call** (Motorola prototype). Before this: Phones were tethered to landlines. Calling meant finding a telephone booth or home line.
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+ - 1973: **Oil Crisis** / OPEC embargo. Before this: Western nations assumed oil supply was cheap and endless. After: Gasoline rationing, speed limits, and birth of modern energy policy.
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+ - 1975: **Personal computers** begin (Altair 8800). Before this: Only corporations or universities used computers. Home computing was unimaginable.
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+ - 1981: **IBM PC** released. Before this: Hobbyist computers were inconsistent. This standardized architecture for business and home computing.
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+ - 1983: **First mobile phone** sold commercially (Motorola DynaTAC). Before this: Communication on the move meant CB radio or pagers. Businesspeople were tied to their desks.
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+ - 1984: **DNA fingerprinting** invented. Before this: Criminal evidence relied on fingerprints, blood types, and eyewitnesses. Paternity was legally disputed without hard evidence.
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+ - 1989: **Fall of Berlin Wall**. Before this: Germany was split, and Eastern Europe was under Soviet domination. Movement across the Iron Curtain was deadly.
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+ - 1990: **World Wide Web** invented (Tim Berners-Lee). Before this: The internet existed for scientists and the military, but was text-only, obscure, and difficult to use.
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+ - 1995: **GPS becomes publicly available**. Before this: Navigation relied on paper maps, compasses, and asking for directions.
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+ - 1996: **Dolly the sheep** cloned. Before this: Cloning of mammals was thought impossible. Genetics was still largely experimental.
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+ - 1998: **Google founded**. Before this: Internet search was poor. Engines like AltaVista and Yahoo listed results manually or poorly ranked.
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+ - 1999: **Introduction of Bluetooth**. Before this: No short-range wireless communication. Devices had to connect physically or over infrared.
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+ - 2001: **9/11** attacks on U.S.. Before this: Air travel was relatively relaxed. Global terrorism was not the focus of national security.
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+ - 2003: **Human Genome Project** completed. Before this: Human genetics was understood in fragments. Precision medicine was impossible.
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+ - 2004: **Facebook** launched. Before this: Social life online was fragmented (forums, IRC, email lists). No centralized digital social identity.
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+ - 2007: **iPhone** released. Before this: Phones were mainly for calling/texting. No universal internet access in your pocket.
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+ - 2008: **Global Financial Crisis**. Before this: Housing was considered a safe investment. After: Global austerity and mass unemployment.
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+ - 2012: **CRISPR** used for gene editing. Before this: Gene editing was imprecise, slow, and expensive.
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+ - 2016: **Brexit** referendum. Before this: EU membership seemed permanent. Britain’s vote marked a turn in global politics toward nationalism.
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+ - 2016: **AlphaGo** shows that deep learning surpasses human performance in Go. Before this: AI was limited to narrow tasks. After: Widespread fear and hype around general intelligence.
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  # Data sources to investigate
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  # Cleaning up
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+ Will need to remove all references to google, the internet, any URLs, OCR, etc
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+
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  List all file containing at least 1% lines of non-English characters (there's a
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  lot of Hebrew newspapers)
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