21-year-old uses AI to decode a burnt & unopened Herculaneum scroll (interestingengineering.com)
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 14 Oct 2023 00:00
https://lemmy.world/post/6767457

21-year-old uses AI to decode a burnt & unopened Herculaneum scroll::undefined

#technology

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[deleted] on 14 Oct 2023 00:18 next collapse

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cheese_greater@lemmy.world on 14 Oct 2023 00:42 next collapse

In a related anecdote, one thing that blew my mind was the realization that any “program” or “app” fundamentally packages existing functionality that you can already do without that specific app. Most of the time, it still makes sense to use and pay for the abstraction rather than reinventing the wheel constantly but it is a sobering thought for sure.

[deleted] on 14 Oct 2023 00:47 collapse

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cheese_greater@lemmy.world on 14 Oct 2023 00:52 next collapse

Yes, yes—its all very meta

Edit: wats that thing with like the polygons infinitely zooming in and the view/perspective remains the same since its infinitely recurring/reducable

Edit: fractals

tsonfeir@lemm.ee on 14 Oct 2023 00:58 collapse

Mandelbrot.

cheese_greater@lemmy.world on 14 Oct 2023 01:08 collapse

Thank you, and the English word is fractal that I was thinking of :)

can@sh.itjust.works on 14 Oct 2023 04:04 collapse

…yes you can

[deleted] on 14 Oct 2023 04:09 collapse

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protist@mander.xyz on 14 Oct 2023 01:19 next collapse

Your mistake is thinking the picture in the thumbnail was the starting point, when that was actually the end point generated by the algorithm created by the guy who won this award. The AI built these words off of a “crackle pattern” someone else identified from CT scans of the scroll

Farritor then trained a machine-learning model on Casey’s crackle pattern. He identified multiple ink strokes and more letters and used them as training data. His model started identifying letters and hints of words that weren’t visible to him. After he submitted his findings to the program, a panel of papyrologists noted 13 letters and identified that the hidden word is “Porphyras” which means “purple” and is a bit of a rarity in ancient texts.

[deleted] on 14 Oct 2023 02:02 collapse

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protist@mander.xyz on 14 Oct 2023 02:08 collapse

You understand fully how this 21 year old was able to identify words written on the inside of the charred remains of a 2000 year old unopenable papyrus, impressing a team of professional papyrologists?

[deleted] on 14 Oct 2023 01:21 next collapse

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Ddhuud@lemmy.world on 14 Oct 2023 03:16 collapse

The output of the IA was the picture.

[deleted] on 14 Oct 2023 02:28 next collapse

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poweruser@lemmy.sdf.org on 14 Oct 2023 07:14 next collapse

S_E_N_D

N_U_D_E_S

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 14 Oct 2023 19:00 collapse

I assume this can be filed under crazy shit students do with the new scary technology