Google Develops AI Tool That Fills Missing Words In Roman Inscriptions 33
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In addition to sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a freshwater system and public health, the Romans also produced a lot of inscriptions. Making sense of the ancient texts can be a slog for scholars, but a new artificial intelligence tool from Google DeepMind aims to ease the process. Named Aeneas after the mythical Trojan hero, the program predicts where and when inscriptions were made and makes suggestions where words are missing. Historians who put the program through its paces said it transformed their work by helping them identify similar inscriptions to those they were studying, a crucial step for setting the texts in context, and proposing words to fill the inevitable gaps in worn and damaged artefacts. [...]
The Google team led by Yannis Assael worked with historians to create an AI tool that would aid the research process. The program is trained on an enormous database of nearly 200,000 known inscriptions, amounting to 16m characters. Aeneas takes text, and in some cases images, from the inscription being studied and draws on its training to build a list of related inscriptions from 7th century BC to 8th century BC. Rather than merely searching for similar words, the AI identifies and links inscriptions through deeper historical connections. Having trained on the rich collection of inscriptions, the AI can assign study texts to one of 62 Roman provinces and estimate when it was written to within 13 years. It also provides potential words to fill in any gaps, though this has only been tested on known inscriptions where text is blocked out.
In a test run, researchers set Aeneas loose on a vast inscription carved into monuments around the Roman empire. The self-congratulatory Res Gestae Divi Augusti describes the life achievements of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. Aeneas came up with two potential dates for the work, either the first decade BC or between 10 and 20AD. The hedging echoes the debate among scholars who argue over the same dates. In another test, Aeneas analysed inscriptions on a votive altar from Mogontiacum, now Mainz in Germany, and revealed through subtle linguistic similarities how it had been influenced by an older votive altar in the region. "Those were jaw-dropping moments for us," said [Dr Thea Sommerschield, a historian at the University of Nottingham who developed Aeneas with the tech firm]. Details are published in Nature and Aeneas is available to researchers online.
The Google team led by Yannis Assael worked with historians to create an AI tool that would aid the research process. The program is trained on an enormous database of nearly 200,000 known inscriptions, amounting to 16m characters. Aeneas takes text, and in some cases images, from the inscription being studied and draws on its training to build a list of related inscriptions from 7th century BC to 8th century BC. Rather than merely searching for similar words, the AI identifies and links inscriptions through deeper historical connections. Having trained on the rich collection of inscriptions, the AI can assign study texts to one of 62 Roman provinces and estimate when it was written to within 13 years. It also provides potential words to fill in any gaps, though this has only been tested on known inscriptions where text is blocked out.
In a test run, researchers set Aeneas loose on a vast inscription carved into monuments around the Roman empire. The self-congratulatory Res Gestae Divi Augusti describes the life achievements of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. Aeneas came up with two potential dates for the work, either the first decade BC or between 10 and 20AD. The hedging echoes the debate among scholars who argue over the same dates. In another test, Aeneas analysed inscriptions on a votive altar from Mogontiacum, now Mainz in Germany, and revealed through subtle linguistic similarities how it had been influenced by an older votive altar in the region. "Those were jaw-dropping moments for us," said [Dr Thea Sommerschield, a historian at the University of Nottingham who developed Aeneas with the tech firm]. Details are published in Nature and Aeneas is available to researchers online.
Mad Libs (Score:3)
The results would probably have the Romans in stitches.
The meat is spoiled but the vodka is strong (Score:2)
Finally!! (Score:2)
Just what I always needed.
Now I need to get to Rome.
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what have the romans even done for us?
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they gave you a tutorial on empire building to cosplay.
you had a Caligula, then a Claudius and now a Nero, and the Caligula and Nero roles are cosplayed by the same pedophile.
So decadent it is just grotesque.
Re: (Score:3)
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Nobody in trumpistan could read unamerican languages, so they went with Gibbon.
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All larger empires came later.
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Roman gave me a blowjob once.
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Rumour has it that all roads lead there.
Re: Finally!! (Score:4, Funny)
How does it handle "Romanes domus"? (Score:3)
Re:How does it handle "Romanes domus"? (Score:5, Funny)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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The only problem (Score:2)
The "AI" hallucinates in the Romani language.
Well of course (Score:3)
Given the AI is simply regurgitating data originally created by these same people, this is not exactly a shock.
Finally Biggus Dickus will get the (Score:2)
glory he deserves. [youtube.com]
They'll find a way to monetize it... (Score:3)
They'll find a way to monetize it. Apparently the Romans drank a surprising amount of Coca-Cola and drove around in Ford chariots, at least that's what the ancient texts seem to say when filling in the missing words.
Breaking: AI makes shit up (Score:2)
Romani ite domum (Score:2)
Is what it read.
"I don't know" (Score:2)
Does the AI ever admit that it doesn't know what the rest of the inscription said? That's the only honest answer.
Do the Google team repeat the process after removing randomly selected data from the training and see how the outcome changes, repeatedly?
So what? Anyone can do that. (Score:2)
Filling In Blanks is Not Enough (Score:2)
Low entropy (Score:2)
This reminds one of that old joke. (Score:2)
A dog hears a human trying to bark. It can't really understand it, but in its doggy way it's saying back, "You're trying, good job. Keep trying!"
A cat hears a human trying to meow. It can't really understand it, but its kitty way it's saying back, "Are you a complete idiot? You clearly have no idea what you're doing. You should shut up."
I imagine this AI tool is much the same. It may sometimes stumble over a sequence that may fit, but it may just be really confidently spouting absolute nonsense really confi
Their evil knows no bounds (Score:4, Funny)
So uhh (Score:2)
Will it complete fiat money? (Score:1)
What would be helpful is a tool that will fill in the missing part if I had some broken dollar bills... Broken accidentally, of course.
from 7th century BC to 8th century BC? (Score:2)