I am on the vesuvius challenge team that did the segmentation, unwrapping, and ink detection, so feel free to ask any questions.
suddenlybananas
Scrolls 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.
tokai
I'm really hoping that the library contains some lost older Greek works. But its going to be awesome what ever we find.
bobowzki
Very impressive! I also highly recommend visiting Herculaneum. A thought: I guess the days of scratch off lottery tickets are numbered?
kilroy123
For 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.
clickety_clack
When 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.
9dev
Every 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.
_verandaguy
I 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.
josefritzishere
This is huge, we're about to learn so much about ancient texts.
lanthissa
The 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.
cwillu
Link to the image: https://scrollprize.org/img/firstscroll/banner-full.webp
INTPenis
But 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.
mattbettinson
I wonder what the parellel would be 2,000 years for now: A Post-Great Solar Flare of 2484 Step Brothers DVD Has Been Decoded
shevy-java
Kind of cool. The eruption sort of "froze" some information in time, for later generations to learn from people living ~2000 years in the past.
charcircuit
I thought we were able to read some of these scrolls years ago?
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.
proee
Only 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.
cortesoft
This is so cool. I feel like it is almost a victory against entropy!
hasteg
So 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).
ur-whale
A scroll has been read ... what does it say ?
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Discussion Highlights (20 comments)
verditelabs
I am on the vesuvius challenge team that did the segmentation, unwrapping, and ink detection, so feel free to ask any questions.
suddenlybananas
Scrolls 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.
tokai
I'm really hoping that the library contains some lost older Greek works. But its going to be awesome what ever we find.
bobowzki
Very impressive! I also highly recommend visiting Herculaneum. A thought: I guess the days of scratch off lottery tickets are numbered?
kilroy123
For 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.
clickety_clack
When 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.
9dev
Every 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.
_verandaguy
I 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.
josefritzishere
This is huge, we're about to learn so much about ancient texts.
lanthissa
The 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.
cwillu
Link to the image: https://scrollprize.org/img/firstscroll/banner-full.webp
INTPenis
But 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.
mattbettinson
I wonder what the parellel would be 2,000 years for now: A Post-Great Solar Flare of 2484 Step Brothers DVD Has Been Decoded
shevy-java
Kind of cool. The eruption sort of "froze" some information in time, for later generations to learn from people living ~2000 years in the past.
charcircuit
I thought we were able to read some of these scrolls years ago?
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.
proee
Only 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.
cortesoft
This is so cool. I feel like it is almost a victory against entropy!
hasteg
So 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).
ur-whale
A scroll has been read ... what does it say ?