iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

In 4 years, we've come from whatever this was to... Claude Code.

Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

After four weeks of nonstop coding, it's time to slow down a little and engage in some reflections. As I regularly remind my students and lab members, a digital humanities scholar who only engages in technical work without reading and reflecting isn't really in the humanities.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Thanks to AI agents, I've managed to completely redesign two of my existing websites and create a brand new one ... in 6 days. Brave new world. And I'm beyond pleased with the results. Check out: javiercha.com bigdatastudies.net samhan.ai

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

This is how NER should be done. I used Claude Code to add LLM integration. For the time being, I'm using GPT-5.6 Luna, which costs literally just pennies to process these requests. Notice how this approach makes provenance visible and invites fellow historians to inspect the results.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Two years ago, I used GPT-4o to automate named-entity recognition tasks on a medieval Korean epitaph data set. I was already quite pleased with the ~90%-accurate rate of the output.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Revisiting a bunch of PDF files I scanned in grad school: It's incredible that so little has changed.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

At our Playing Heaven #DH2026 mini-conference, a Chinese graduate student came up to me after one of the panel sessions and was puzzled by my Tang–Song Confucian knowledge-distillation agent's taxonomy, which grouped "roots and branches" 本末 together with "political economy" 理財.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

I took a train to Busan to head to #DH2026 this morning, except on the slower ITX so that there was an option to jump off the train easily in case zombies started appearing in the rear.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Agents finished the task while I was away conferencing.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Earlier this summer, I was elected as the inaugural Chair of the Hong Kong Association for Digital Humanities (HKADH). I'm proud to announce that I just fulfilled one of my primary campaign promises: to join @adho-org.bsky.social as a constituent organization.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Fanboy with the OG and GOAT of digital Korean studies. #DH2026 #keynote #kimhyeon

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Safe to say that this new run will not be ready by tomorrow 9 am. My Mac Mini, Claude, and Gemini will be busy at my hotel in Seoul while I'm busy conferencing in Daejeon. #DH2026

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

The Education University of Hong Kong will host HKADH2027 on 21-24 January 2027. This will be the third iteration of the Hong Kong Association for Digital Humanities' annual conference, which has played an important role in raising Hong Kong's profile in the global digital humanities community.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

How AI imagines Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037-1101) as a modern-day philosopher-statesman: (1 and 2) my Gemini agent, after knowledge distillation and several rounds of abstraction; (3) Gemini 3.5 Thinking, using a zero-shot prompt; and (4) ChatGPT 5.5 in Pro mode, using a zero-shot prompt.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Playing Heaven: Remapping Early Modern Neo-Confucian Worlds with AI Project launch events at the University of Hong Kong on 1 June 2026 and at @dh2026daejeon.bsky.social in Daejeon, South Korea on 28 July 2026. bigdatastudies.net/playing-heav... dh2026.adho.org/call-for-pap...

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I received something today. Even though I received this teaching award at HKUArts, I give most of the credit to the five years I spent at SNU CLS, where I grew so much as an interdisciplinary researcher and teacher. Forever in my heart ❤️. #샤대자전

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

CFP: Playing Heaven: Remapping Early Modern Neo-Confucian Worlds with AI dh2026.adho.org/pre-conferne... #DH2026 @dh2026daejeon.bsky.social

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

My open-access article based on the DH2025 keynote is now out. www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10....

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

UBC folks: I'm giving a talk in Buchanan Tower this afternoon, if you happen to be on campus and have nothing better to do.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

After many years of conceptualizing, overthinking, and revising, my Neo4j article is finally out. Take a look. It's available in open access. culturalanalytics.org/article/id/1...

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

How my Italian colleagues discuss the impact AI brings to the humanities.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

I've never received this level of sophisticated and detailed feedback on my PhD research, ever. This is seriously mind-blowing. Next: what will happen if we convert this AI PhD supervisor into an agent? With no exaggeration, I feel like I'm working with an artificial superintelligence system.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Look what just arrived in my mailbox!

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Lauren Tilton @nolauren.bsky.social and I are drinking the coolest bottle of coffee ever made! #HKADH2026 #CUHK

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

At long last! Thank you for everything, @alanyliu.bsky.social. Eternally indebted. www.upress.umn.edu/978151791608...

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Is anybody interested in alpha testing Nabi X? You can: (1) upload your own documents and interact with them; or (2) you can have conversations with existing digital humanities and premodern Korean history materials. Let me know via a reply or PM. More on Nabi X: bigdatastudies.net/nabi-x/

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

I'm relieved that I have a decent understanding of Rosenzweig, but I admit that Nabi X is good at helping me catch some of my blind spots.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

TFW a kernel of an idea from 18 months ago becomes reality. I'm so thankful to the magicians in my team. We have begun to roll out Nabi X in my two courses this semester!

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

Despite a few errors here and there, this ChatGPT 5 translation is quite readable. Wow, I can assign Yi Taejin's classic article of land reclamation in the 16th century to undergrad students.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

Is this potentially a game changer? This semester, I'm assigning readings in both English and Korean and teaching students how to read primary sources in classical Chinese via AI translators (with caveats). GPT-5's English translation of Lee Ikjoo's study of the Chosŏn founding is quite decent:

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

I have two events coming up at Leuven, after @jing-hu.bsky.social's highly anticipated PhD defense. Monday, 1 September: a workshop with Jing on how I processed the Andong Kwŏn Genealogy of 1476 so that it can be "digitally (re)read" via Neo4j queries. GitHub page: github.com/javiercha/an...

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

First of many. Headed the goal to silence the critics. #COYG

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

And we caught a glimpse of the lads as they checked into their hotel. Here's Gyökeres. 🫱🏻😶🫲🏻 Dude is a monster. Pure muscle and determination. I can't wait for this season to start.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Argentinian, aka childhood memories

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Sichuanese run by a northern Chinese family (hence my order)

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

The Aeropress has turned out to be a lifesaver during #DH2025. I perfected the inverted brewing method.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

CFP: #HKADH2026 will be hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (23-25 January 2026). Keynote speakers: Lauren Tilton @nolauren.bsky.social and Andrew Piper ‪‪@andrewpiper.bsky.social‬. Submission deadline: 31 August. 2026.hkadh.org/callforpapers/ #HKADH

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

I've figured out how to extract all 67 relinking loops (pending final verification, so this number might change slightly) from the Andong Kwŏn genealogy. Here's loop #3. When I was working on my dissertation, I could only dream that this kind of exploration might one day be possible.

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Javier Cha @javiercha.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Evidential learning and LLMs: Mingru xue'an will be converted into a knowledge base for AI-augmented East Asian intellectual history. I added those bookmarks twenty years ago. Even though I was still quite the techie back then, little did I know what would be eventually possible in the 2020s.

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