Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll
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Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll
#2> We estimate that the scrolls we have in Naples contain more than 16 megabytes of text. Some members of our papyrology team say that revealing this text will be the greatest revolution in the classics since the Renaissance
Amazing achievement, let's hope the Italian government allows for additional excavation of the villa.
Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll
#3> We estimate that the scrolls we have in Naples contain more than 16 megabytes of text. Some members of our papyrology team say that revealing this text will be the greatest revolution in the classics since the Renaissance Amazing achievement, let's hope the Italian government allows for additional excavation of the villa.
they likely would, Pompeii and Herculaneum are _still_ being excavated after two centuries, it's not like things are still.
But we have only read 5% of this scroll and there are a ton more already excavated, it will probably take years before we manage to process what we already have.
Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll
#4This is the coolest thing I've read this year. It reads like science fiction. Who would even imagine it's possible to read text from a 2000 year-old rolled up burnt-crisp paper?
Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll
#5When I first came across this project on HN (early last year), I was taken aback by how impossible the project looked and how smart were people working on this. Despite seeing a few intelligent names behind the project, I subconsciously believed that this would at least take 5-10 years before a breakthrough.
Today I sit with the same amazement, taken aback again, appreciating how ridiculously awesome this is. Congratulations to the winners and everyone involved!
Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll
#6“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Absolutely insane the level of wizardry being applied here to turn a lump of blackened, charred scrolls into readable text.
Having only cursory knowledge with machine learning are some of the techniques used in the article only recently discovered or have they been around for a while?
Is it due to us having reached an inflection point with these types of algorithms that they have become more popular and thus we are seeing new ways to apply them to old problems?
Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll
#7Quite incredible work, with the original breakthrough model being trained on a 1070: https://twitter.com/LukeFarritor/status/1754532281690243339
Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll
#8One aspect of archaeology that I really find fascinating is the practice of leaving certain artifacts unexplored. The original discoverers of the scrolls tried to unroll a few, apparently found it was impossible without completely destroying the scroll, and then just left the rest undisturbed. Rather than pushing forward and destroying everything, they left these as a mystery for a future age. Two centuries (!!) later we can finally begin to understand these, with the aid of technology that would be utterly unthinkable to those people who very thoughtfully restrained themselves.
Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll
#9This is exciting, it's very unusual for new texts to be added to our collection of ancient literature.
Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll
#10> We estimate that the scrolls we have in Naples contain more than 16 megabytes of text. Some members of our papyrology team say that revealing this text will be the greatest revolution in the classics since the Renaissance Amazing achievement, let's hope the Italian government allows for additional excavation of the villa.
they likely would, Pompeii and Herculaneum are _still_ being excavated after two centuries, it's not like things are still. But we have only read 5% of this scroll and there are a ton more already excavated, it will probably take years before we manage to process what we already have.
> it will probably take years
In the direction things are going ... maybe a few months :)