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Comments (176)
- codeulikeLets reflect on Aristocreon, in about 200 BC, putting their thoughts down on a scroll. They would be aware that the scroll might be kept in a library for some time. Maybe they could have imagined it surviving for 300 years. But they never would have imagined that in 300 years a volcano might destroy the scroll, but in some way preserve it. And then that nearly two thousand years later future humans with machines made of materials unimaginable to Aristocreon, but related distantly to sand and lightning, would be able to read the scroll again and instantly transmit it to nearly the whole planet, a planet with many times more humans than existed in their time. (and speaking of 'planet', in Aristocreon's time, people had fairly recently been able to show that the world was spherical but much of it was still unknown).Do we have better imaginations? Can our sci-fi writers come up with something equivalent that is as dizzyingly far from what we know now, as now is from what Aristocreon knew?
- verditelabsI am on the vesuvius challenge team that did the segmentation, unwrapping, and ink detection, so feel free to ask any questions.
- proeeOnly about 20% of the Herculaneum site has been excavated, so there is high probability that more scrolls exist. The current scrolls were not part of the main library, but more of a private collection at the time.So imagine how cool it would be to find a full library with thousand of scrolls across many different topics, that can now be read with this technology.
- 9devEvery time you feel depressed by the state of tech, and how so many intelligent people seem to work on forcing ever more ads down people's throats (a common trope around these parts), remember that projects like this do exist too!There are lots of very smart folks working on incredible things, they just aren't as loud.
- mattbettinsonI wonder what the parellel would be 2,000 years for now:A Post-Great Solar Flare of 2484 Step Brothers DVD Has Been Decoded
- sourcecodeplz“…we will inquire into something, but we will not grasp it, if in some way we depart from ourselves and from our own nature…”“Having…strained ourselves to the utmost through research and learning…possessing the same practical wisdom…”“…such being the goods for us, even from the opposite evils there will be neither anything good — let alone beautiful — nor anything bad — let alone ugly — nor happiness…”
- kilroy123For me, this is one of the most exciting things being done with AI right now. (This and medical research)I'm kind of obsessed with the ancient world. I dream of being able to read entire pages of new text from ~2,000 years ago.
- empiricusHow much of this work is "with 5 parameters I can fit an elephant"?
- clickety_clackWhen I read translations like these, I always wonder if the tone is translated. Did the writer mean to convey a very formal “to the utmost”, or was it a more casual “to the max”.How much of the translators bias makes these seem like academic papers instead of social media posts.
- lanthissaThe person who wrote this was was closer in time to the technology that was able to unwind and read burned fragments of their text, than the technology that build the pyramids. pretty wild to think about.
- cyberpunk> "we will inquire into something, but we will not grasp it, if in some way we depart from ourselves and from our own nature, and besides, in the same way as the remaining arts may be said to be perfected in one respect, but to be deficient in practical wisdom in another respect"- Philodemus, On Gods, Book 8 Year 0. Ish. :}
- _verandaguyI imagine it's not the first time, It must've at least been proofread at the time of writing :)But really impressive stuff! Between this and (a particularly optimistic outlook on) the Linear-A news from the other week this is an exciting time for linguistics.
- thewakalixWas this announcement AI-generated?
- tern> "…we will inquire into something, but we will not grasp it, if in some way we depart from ourselves and from our own nature…"Beautifully ironic, that we find this message.
- bobowzkiVery impressive! I also highly recommend visiting Herculaneum.A thought: I guess the days of scratch off lottery tickets are numbered?
- cwilluLink to the image: https://scrollprize.org/img/firstscroll/banner-full.webp
- pacman1337Where is the direct English translation? I don't care about anything else.
- INTPenisBut wait, the work seems to be from the 2nd century, but it was buried during the Vesuvius eruption in the 1st century?I love stuff like this because it gives a glimpse into Roman society. To me it seems like they were very similar to us today, forever contemplating learning, existence, gods.
- hastegSo far this is some of the best uses of ML I've seen to date! This is one of the few things you can point at and say "AI made the world a better place" IMO (this and medical research).
- HarHarVeryFunnyThis is technology verging on witchcraft!Amazing!
- anonundefined
- ur-whaleA scroll has been read ... what does it say ?
- normie3000A Herculaneum effort.
- cortesoftThis is so cool. I feel like it is almost a victory against entropy!
- juliankauaiHow long till someone uses the hardware and code to process all the redacted data in the epstein files. Why wait thousands of years?
- suddenlybananasScrolls from Herculaneum have been read for a very long time. Not disputing the achievement of digitally unrolling one, but the scrolls from the library of have been studied since the 18th century.
- charcircuitI thought we were able to read some of these scrolls years ago?
- shevy-javaKind of cool. The eruption sort of "froze" some information in time, for later generations to learn from people living ~2000 years in the past.
- tokaiI'm really hoping that the library contains some lost older Greek works. But its going to be awesome what ever we find.
- josefritzishereThis is huge, we're about to learn so much about ancient texts.
- jwitchel"I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this."Fantastic work!
- yuvrajsa[flagged]
