Out from the ashes: AI helps to decipher a scroll buried by Mt. Vesuvius. From the article:

For the first time, amateur researchers have deciphered letters on an unopened ancient scroll, using artificial intelligence to isolate the letters.

The achievement announced Thursday was the result of a contest organized by former Github CEO Nat Friedman and fellow entrepreneur Daniel Gross, who launched the Vesuvius Challenge in March. As more people, mainly from the tech industry, have gotten involved, the award money has increased, with a grand prize of $700,000.

Luke Farritor, a 21-year-old computer scientist, was the first to uncover a word in the scroll and received a $40,000 “First Letters Prize.” The result could lead to a significant increase in the number of ancient texts that are available for scholars to study, and offers an example of how AI is poised to revolutionize nearly every industry.

“This will change papyrology in general,” said Federica Nicolardi, an assistant professor at the University of Naples who was involved in the effort. “It opens up a new part of the discipline.”…

Brent Seales, head of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments, found a novel way to read the scrolls without opening them. Among other tools, he used a Diamond Light Source particle accelerator, a kind of x-ray that is precise enough to scan the layers of the scroll.

When Friedman heard about this, he recognized the opportunity to use AI to decode the data Seales had gathered.

Nicolardi believes she and other researchers will soon be able to read entire scrolls, including the bottom, where the title of the work and the name of the author are usually found.

She thinks the scrolls are likely works of Greek philosophy and could be written by an Epicurean philosopher, or even Aristotle, she said.

For other articles on this discovery, see here and here.