ChatGPT's potential in the deep exploration of Islamic manuscripts

This study aimed to determine the role of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in accessing manuscripts by critically evaluating the accuracy and completeness of the information provided by ChatGPT about Islamic manuscripts with the aim of identifying areas of strength and areas where improvement is needed in its performance as an information extraction tool. The manuscripts included in the study (23 Arabic manuscripts) were known and were identified by referring to a number of academicians specializing in Islamic manuscripts. The study used the ChatGPT-3.5 version, and one of its most important results is that the number of manuscripts that ChatGPT provided information about was 14 out of 23 (60.9%), while it did not provide information about nine manuscripts (39.1%). At the level of the descriptive or identifying data of the manuscript, ChatGPT provided four descriptive elements: the title of all 14 manuscripts (100%), the subject of 10 manuscripts (71.4%), the formal features of eight manuscripts (57.1%) and the author of six manuscripts (42.8%).