🌋 Can AI Decipher Ancient Roman Scrolls?

Good Morning from the Promptbox Team!

Well, it's been quite a week, but we're wrapping it up on a high note - AI was able to read a scroll from the Roman Empire that’s pushing almost two millennia!

Sure, there's also chatter about Ukraine's debut of fully autonomous killer drones – but hey, let's spotlight the positives.

And, for the dog lovers among us, check out the Amazon link below. Every purchase nets us a cool .03 cents, so yeah, we’re doing pretty, pretty good.

It’s Friday. Let's get it.

Kevin

In an extraordinary technological feat, an ancient scroll from the Roman city of Herculaneum, which had remained unreadable for nearly two thousand years due to a catastrophic volcanic eruption - the same one that buried Pompei, has been deciphered for the first time using artificial intelligence.

Key Facts:

• Innovative Breakthrough: A 21-year-old computer science student, Luke Farritor, successfully read text from a carbonized scroll using a machine-learning algorithm he developed.

• Historical Significance: The scroll is from Herculaneum, a city buried in the same AD 79 eruption that decimated Pompeii, offering invaluable insights from Greco-Roman antiquity.

• Technical Approach: Farritor's algorithm detected Greek letters by discerning small-scale differences in surface texture to reveal the ink, identifying the word πορϕυρας (porphyras) which means 'purple'.

• Academic Validation: Federica Nicolardi, a papyrologist, expressed amazement at Farritor's findings, stating that for the first time, she could see inside a scroll.

• Historical Context: Hundreds of scrolls were buried by Mount Vesuvius' eruption, and previous attempts to open them resulted in fragmented pieces, leaving many texts unread until now.

• Vesuvius Challenge: This contest, with various awards, offered $40,000 to anyone who could read more than 10 characters in a specific area of the papyrus. Luke Farritor won this 'first letters' prize.

The use of AI to decipher the Herculaneum scroll marks a significant stride forward for historians and scholars.

As AI technology grows more sophisticated, its integration with historical research offers the potential to unlock previously inaccessible ancient knowledge.

With many more scrolls awaiting decipherment, the fusion of AI and archaeology may soon unveil a trove of ancient secrets.

Check out the full story below.

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Promptbox’s Top Trending AI Stories:

BREAK BING
Microsoft will pay you up to $15,000 for you to push its new AI-powered Bing search tools into an existential meltdown.
The bounty program is aimed at security pros, the idea being they find various flaws and security issues with Microsoft products and services, report them to Microsoft and receive an award. To get the full $15k you have to submit a detailed report that meets a very long list of submission requirements.

KILLER ROBOTS
Ukrainian AI attack drones may be killing without human oversight. 
Ukrainian attack drones equipped with artificial intelligence are now finding and attacking targets without human assistance, in what would be the first confirmed use of autonomous weapons or “killer robots”

PURCHASING POWER
A long-awaited White House executive order on AI is expected to target government procurement of the technology, as well as tightening some standards for industry.
The Biden administration’s long-awaited executive order on artificial intelligence is expected to leverage the federal government’s vast purchasing power to shape American standards for a technology that has galloped ahead of regulators.

MILITARY MIGHT
Retired Army Gen. Mark Milley believes that artificial intelligence will be a critical component of keeping the U.S. military one step ahead of potential adversaries.
"Our military is going to have to change if we are going to continue to be superior to every other military on Earth," Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during an interview with "60 Minutes" this week.

ENERGY SAVINGS
Northwestern University engineers have developed a new nanoelectronic device that can perform accurate machine-learning classification tasks in the most energy-efficient manner yet.
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