DeepMinds new AI model helps decipher, date, and locate ancient inscriptions
Inscriptions like this provide first-hand evidence of the thoughts, language, and society of ancient Greece. | Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Machine learning techniques are providing new tools that could help archaeologists understand the past — particularly when it comes to deciphering ancient texts. The latest example is an AI model created by Alphabet-subsidiary DeepMind that helps not only restore text that is missing from ancient Greek inscriptions but offers suggestions for when the text was written (within a 30-year period) and its possible geographic origins.
“Inscriptions are really important because they are direct sources of evidence ... written directly by ancient people themselves,” Thea Sommerschield, a historian and machine learning expert who helped created the model, told journalists in a press briefing.
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