LLMs as counterfactual historians

Large language models are being used to generate detailed counterfactual historical analyses (e.g., advising what would have been the best investment in 1300 AD). These outputs are already being privileged in public intellectual spaces and can shape how non‑specialists think about long‑run economic narratives and plausibility judgments. — If LLMs gain cultural authority for historical counterfactuals, they will reshape public understanding of economic history, inform speculative policymaking, and test the boundary between expert scholarship and machine‑generated synthesis.