Talk to historical figures with AI, as part of a class
Awaken History lets students talk to historical figures, by voice or by typing, as part of a course. Every conversation starts from a short reading, the figure answers from its own writing and the course's sources, and it pushes back when an answer is vague. It isn't an open chat app, you get in through a teacher's class code.
What the conversation is like
You read first. The primer is short and written from the figure's side, what they knew at the time and what they hadn't seen yet. Then you talk, out loud with a microphone or by typing, and you can switch.
The figure doesn't just wait for questions. It opens, asks you what you remember, interviews you, and then challenges something you said. At the end you have to teach the idea back. If you get stuck there's a ladder of hints rather than a dead end. A lesson finishes when you've covered the ideas and taught them back, not after a set number of minutes.
Some lessons are debates. In the Contemporary Civilization demo you read Book I of Plato's Republic and argue Thrasymachus's side against Socrates, by text, and you get feedback on whether you answered the question, used the text, held your side, and made a move Socrates had to grant.
Where the answers come from
Each reply draws on the figure's own words and on the readings for the course. A Sources used note sits under every reply. It names what the answer drew on, labels whether that is something the figure wrote or said or related background, and shows any line quoted word for word. You can open it and check.
That doesn't make the figure the real person. It is an AI portrayal, and it can be wrong, so the sources are there to be read.
Who you can talk to
The first full course is A History of Artificial Intelligence, eleven conversations with Alan Turing, John McCarthy, Frank Rosenblatt, Bill Gates, Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Demis Hassabis, Ilya Sutskever, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and Marc Andreessen. There are demo courses for Contemporary Civilization and Music Humanities, and teachers can build their own course with their own cast, in any subject with people in it.
Eight of the eleven AI figures are alive. Living figures get painted portraits, never photographs or photorealistic images, and their voices are designed, not cloned from recordings.
What it is not
- Not a chat app you open on your own. You join a class with a code from your teacher.
- Not a library of every figure in history. Each course has a small cast picked for its readings.
- Not a test. There is no score or points, and your teacher decides how the work counts.
- Not private from your teacher. Your teacher can read your conversations, prep cards and reflections, and you are told this before every conversation.
Have a class code?
Join your class and your first lesson is waiting. Teachers can email jonah@voicesofhistory.co for a demo login.
Looking at other tools too? Here is how Awaken History compares with Humy and Hello History.