Artificial intelligence helps unlock ancient secrets

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help historians rewrite history - literally, by recreating ancient Greek lines lost in ancient inscriptions, a new study suggests. .

Dive into the past

The new AI system they developed not only correctly reads the ancient Greek inscriptions, but also fills in the gaps that have been lost due to damaged inscriptions, the researchers say. them in terms of time and place.

The ancient inscriptions exist in a broken and fragmented form.

Explaining the importance of inscriptions to historians, Dr. Thea Sommerschield, co-author of a study by Ca' Foscari University, Venice; Both Harvard University and the artificial intelligence company DeepMind, initiated by them, say they are proof that people at the time directly wrote texts that express the ideas, languages, societies and histories of different cultures. ancient civilization.

However, most of the surviving inscriptions have been damaged over the centuries to make them unreadable, or the same text is scattered. This is not uncommon, as inscriptions were often moved from their original locations by later rulers and dynasties.

Since conventional methods such as radiocarbon dating have had no effect on the rock, historians have not been able to glean complete information from such damaged inscriptions. Therefore, other options are needed to fully understand the ancient texts.

Named after King Odysseus' home island in Greece, modern Ithaca is a form of artificial intelligence, deep neural network structure developed by Google's artificial intelligence company DeepMind. It helps textual experts fill in important gaps in texts dating back to Homer's time.

'Just as microscopes and telescopes have expanded the scope of what scientists can do today, Ithaca aims to strengthen and develop the ability to study one of the most important periods of human history', said Dr Yannis Assael, co-author of the work.

The team believes that Ithaca could work with most ancient languages, from Latin and Mayan to cuneiform. Moreover, it has the ability to read Greek literary texts written on papyrus, opening the prospect of better approaching and understanding the ancient authors, since most of their works exist only in the form of papyrus. sporadic.

It can even be developed to determine the authorship of texts through linguistic analysis.

Researchers say Ithaca has unlocked some of the secrets of the ancients. When applied to a set of edicts recovered from the Acropolis in Athens, it unexpectedly discovered that one of the documents was different from the others.

These texts, which involved the collection of tributes throughout the Athenian empire, are believed to date from 448 - 7 BC. However, Ithaca concluded, a real text came out 30 years earlier than previous studies.

'Perhaps this is an insignificant difference, but this 30-year change has significant implications for our understanding of the political history of classical Athens and helps us better organize literary sources, inscription documents.

We hope models like Ithaca can unlock the potential for collaboration between AI and the humanities in the study of some of the most important periods in human history," said Dr Thea Sommerschield.

 Ithaca helps fill in the blanks of missing letters.

Is there alternative historian?

To date, according to reports, Ithaca shows a success rate of 62% in recovering damaged texts and 71% in locating their original locations and exact dates. Meanwhile, historians working without Ithaca's help are only 25% successful in such fields.

While excited about the possibilities AI opens up, the academics also warn against the caution needed in using this new technology to interpret the past.

Professor Peter Liddel, an expert on Greek history and symbolism at the University of Manchester, admits that AI will certainly add to historians' toolbox, helping to better understand processes, as well as the evolution of history. development of imperialism or the nature of worship. However, like academics, AI is only valid for available archaic documents.

Professor Peter Liddel said: 'AI is only as powerful as a tool to help us question and compare existing evidence. What it produces would be incomplete and unreliable, if conclusions were drawn independent of human knowledge'.

Professor Melissa Terras, an expert on digital cultural heritage at the University of Edinburgh, is also cautious about the use of AI. It is important to continue training historians in traditional methods to interpret software-generated results, she said.

Even so, she admits AI has immense potential, given the structural format of ancient texts that only exist in fragments.