Has Google Quietly Solved AI’s Two Oldest Problems? A Historian’s Firsthand Test

As someone who spends most days squinting at 18th-century handwritten archives, I recently experienced something that sent a professional shiver down my spine. It started with a subtle change in Google AI Studio—users began noticing occasional A/B tests where two answers appeared side-by-side, asking them to select the better one. This kind of testing typically precedes major model releases, and the leaked capabilities might mark AI’s transition from quantitative improvement to qualitative transformation. This post shares how I accidentally accessed this mysterious model and witnessed what can only be described as near-autonomous reasoning in handwritten historical document analysis. Every detail …