AI reads text from ancient Herculaneum scroll for the first time

Salamendacious@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 137 points –
AI reads text from ancient Herculaneum scroll for the first time
nature.com

AI reads text from ancient Herculaneum scroll for the first time

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Humans can do this, which is why the AI was able to. AI just automated the process, which is great, but the same thing as Excel replacing handwritten spreadsheets or genome sequencing projects which in both cases speed up things people are able to do.

The AI is reading text on unopenable scrolls based on miniscule differences in texture on areas that were inked. It was trained on openable scrolls where they knew what text was on the other side of them. The whole point of the article was to talk about how this makes the contents of the unopenable scrolls at all accessible, unlike prior because humans cannot read them. It feels like you didn't read the article.

Slapping an edit here: this comment was inaccurate. Compared to using AI for this, humans working out what the scrolls say is infeasible given how long it would take, but I don't think it's fair to say impossible

AI is not a sensor. The sensor let them sense things in the scroll. The AI used methods that could be done by people, just a lot faster. It is very impressive, but not something people are unable to do, just not able to do in a reasonable amount of time.

Fair point. I jumped to assuming you were saying something you weren't, my bad.