AINeutralarXiv – CS AI · 10h ago5/10
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Matching Meaning at Scale: Evaluating Semantic Search for 18th-Century Intellectual History through the Case of Locke
Researchers evaluate semantic search as a tool for analyzing 18th-century intellectual history, specifically tracking how John Locke's ideas circulated through paraphrases and implicit references. While semantic search substantially outperforms traditional lexical methods at capturing meaning-level correspondences, linguistic analysis reveals that retrieval remains constrained by surface-level vocabulary overlap, suggesting both promise and limitations for historical corpus analysis.