Despite A.I.’s many downsides, the tech is also increasingly handling menial tasks like studying brushstrokes and scouring the desert for archaeological treasures , thus enabling academics to focus on more complex matters. Even self-taught genealogists exploring their family histories no longer need to learn foreign languages or parse dense script in order to understand handwritten letters or records. To that end, the Scribe A.I. tool that family history platform MyHeritage launched this spring just successfully translated the earliest surviving Valentine written in English—a note that the gentlewoman Margery Brews sent to her fiancé John Paston in 1477. Like the embattled firm 23andMe , MyHeritage offers consumer DNA testing. But, “MyHeritage has a broader genealogy and family history focus,” a spokesperson for the platform told me over email. MyHeritage helps users build family trees, search records, and preserve archival photos.…