Editorial Standards & Team

How we research, write, review, and fact-check the counterfactual history on Alternate History AI.

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Who We Are

Alternate History AI is a history education platform created and maintained by AI Sure Tech, a software and content development team based in the United States. The site was launched to explore a simple premise: that serious counterfactual analysis — asking "what if?" about key historical turning points — is a powerful tool for understanding why history unfolded as it did.

Our editorial work is a collaboration between human researchers and editors who bring subject-matter knowledge in world history, and large language model AI systems that assist with drafting and synthesis. Every article published on this site passes through human editorial review before publication. The AI accelerates research and drafting; human judgment controls accuracy, balance, and tone.

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Research Methodology

Counterfactual history is most credible when it is grounded in the best available evidence about what actually happened and why. Our research process for each article follows a structured approach:

1. Primary historical grounding: We start with mainstream scholarly consensus on the actual historical events — what happened, when, and what caused it. We consult Wikipedia as an initial orientation, then cross-reference with Britannica, World History Encyclopedia, and peer-reviewed academic works.
2. Source hierarchy: For specialist topics, we draw on the historiographical literature directly. For example, our article on the Hitler art school scenario cites Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men and Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews; our Soviet Union article draws on Stephen Kotkin's work on late Soviet history; our Ming Dynasty article references the scholarship of Timothy Brook and Edward Dreyer on Zheng He.
3. Point of divergence analysis: We identify the smallest, most historically defensible change from the actual record — not invented technology or implausible psychology, but genuine contingencies that contemporaries recognized as uncertain outcomes.
4. Structural vs. individual causation: Our articles consistently analyze both the role of key individuals and the structural forces (economic conditions, institutional arrangements, geographic constraints, ideological movements) that shaped outcomes. We resist the "great man theory of history" where it is unsupported by the historical record.
5. Honest uncertainty: Each article includes a section noting the limits of the counterfactual — where the analysis is speculative and why confident conclusions are unavailable.

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AI's Role in Content Creation

We use large language model AI (including GPT-4 and Claude) as a drafting and synthesis tool. This is disclosed transparently because we believe readers deserve to know how content is produced.

What AI does in our workflow:

• Drafts initial article structures and paragraph text based on editorial briefs
• Synthesizes multiple source summaries into coherent narrative prose
• Generates the interactive scenario dialogue in our simulation platform
• Flags potential factual claims for human verification

What human editors do:

• Define the analytical framework and key arguments for each article
• Verify factual claims against authoritative sources
• Revise for accuracy, nuance, and appropriate handling of sensitive topics
• Apply the site's editorial standards on controversial historical figures and events
• Approve all final published content

AI-generated text can contain errors. Our editorial review process catches the majority of these, but we acknowledge that no content pipeline is error-free. We maintain an active corrections process (see below).

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Handling Sensitive Historical Topics

Several of our scenarios deal with subjects that require careful, responsible framing: the Holocaust, chattel slavery, colonial violence, genocide, and political extremism. We take these topics seriously and hold ourselves to the following standards:

• No glorification: We do not frame perpetrators of atrocities as heroic, romantic, or admirable. Counterfactual scenarios involving such figures are written to understand historical causes, not to celebrate or rehabilitate them.
• Centering victims: Where relevant, our analyses include the perspectives and agency of people who were enslaved, colonized, or persecuted — not only the decision-makers at the top of historical narratives.
• Structural analysis: We consistently situate atrocities within their institutional and cultural contexts, drawing on the scholarly consensus that mass violence requires broad social participation and ideological preconditions, not only individual perpetrators.
• Sitewide disclaimer: Every page on this site carries a clear disclaimer that historical scenarios are presented for educational and analytical purposes only, and that the site does not endorse any form of political violence, discrimination, or harm.

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Sources We Rely On

Our research draws on the following categories of source material:

• General reference: Wikipedia (as a starting point only), Encyclopaedia Britannica, World History Encyclopedia
• Academic publishers: Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Princeton University Press, Harvard University Press
• Peer-reviewed journals: Journal of Modern History, American Historical Review, Past & Present, Journal of World History
• Major narrative histories consulted include: Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men; Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews; Geoffrey Blainey's A Short History of the World; Stephen Kotkin's Stalin trilogy; Timothy Brook's The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties; David Abulafia's The Discovery of Mankind

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Corrections Policy

We are committed to accuracy. If you identify a factual error, a misrepresentation of the historical record, or an analytical claim that contradicts established scholarship, we want to hear from you.

To flag a correction:

1. Use our Contact page and describe the specific error, the article it appears in, and, if possible, a source supporting the correction.
2. We will review the claim against our sources within a reasonable time.
3. Verified corrections are applied to the article, and a note of the update is added to the article's metadata.

We do not remove articles because a reader disagrees with their analytical conclusions. Corrections apply to factual errors, not to differences of historical interpretation where reasonable scholars disagree.

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Contact & Transparency

For editorial questions, corrections, partnership inquiries, or licensing questions, please use our contact form. For technical questions about the platform, visit aisuretech.com.

This page was last reviewed: July 2026.

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