Latest news with #VesuviusChallenge
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
How AI is helping solve an ancient mystery from the Roman Empire
Artificial intelligence is helping to solve an ancient mystery from the Roman Empire involving scrolls from a library that was buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted. The eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 not only wiped out Pompeii, but also the nearby town of Herculaneum. Deep beneath the surface where a villa previously existed, archaeologists in the 18th century found 1,800 papyrus scrolls in the only ancient library in the world that is still intact. Attempts to unravel some of the scrolls ended in ashes as the library was carbonized, Brent Seales, a computer scientist from the University of Kentucky, explained. "People didn't understand what they had. So, some scrolls were actually thrown away or burned and you can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again," Seales said. But thanks to 21st-century technology, experts are now able to examine those still intact. That technology involved a particle accelerator in England. Scientists produced light that was 10 billion times brighter than the sun, much like an X-ray. AI was then used to identify ink, no matter how faint. "I thought to myself, if you can use that technology to see non-invasively inside a human body, why can't we see everything inside an artifact like a scroll?" Seales said. Deciphering the scroll They still needed humans to decipher what the letters mean. So Seales launched the Vesuvius Challenge, a global competition offering $700,000 in prize money. Three college students took it home, making history by being the first to extract words from a carbonized scroll, nearly 2,000 years old, that had been virtually unwrapped. With hundreds more scrolls to go, Seales has launched a second phase of the competition. "With AI-inspired methods that are going to usher in, you know, new results that we've not dreamed of, I don't think renaissance is too strong a word," he said. Seales said he believes there could be more scrolls out there as archaeologists are just beginning to scratch the surface. "I believe the Villa of the Papyri, which has not been fully excavated, stands a really high chance of producing more books," he said. "So much remains for us to discover." Young Cuban girl asks Trump to lift travel ban stopping her from joining mom in U.S. Planning details revealed in U.S. strikes against Iranian nuclear targets White House says no date set for Iran meeting
Mint
20-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Mark Zuckerberg is spending megabucks on an AI hiring spree
When Mark Zuckerberg decided to launch his quest for the metaverse in 2021, he threw fistfuls of cash at the effort. Meta's boss is now repeating the act, this time with generative artificial intelligence (AI). Hot on the heels of what may be the world's most expensive acquihire—a $14.3bn deal to buy 49% of Scale AI, a data-labelling firm whose main asset is Alexandr Wang, its 28-year-old founder—people close to the matter say Mr Zuckerberg is planning to offer more than $1bn combined for two of Silicon Valley's hottest AI brain boxes, who would work under Mr Wang. It marks the start of a reset of Meta's generative-AI ambitions. Meta has made no comment, but if the deal goes through Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, entrepreneurs and partners in a venture-capital (VC) firm called NFDG, will work in Meta's 'superintelligence" unit under Mr Wang, one of America's youngest self-made billionaires. The word 'superintelligence" is somewhat misleading. Rather than ground-breaking AI research, the team is expected to focus on developing new AI products for Meta, some of whose recent efforts, including its latest Llama model and the Meta AI chatbot, have disappointed. Someone who knows all three men calls the trio 'the avengers". He reckons they will have huge additional sums at their disposal to hire top AI researchers in order to unseat OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, as the dominant generative-AI firm. 'They're going to go big," he says. Indeed, there appear to be few limits on what Meta is prepared to spend. On June 17th Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, said on a podcast that Meta was offering signing bonuses of $100m to poach his staff. Another person close to the situation says Mr Zuckerberg sought to hire Ilya Sutskever, the brains behind ChatGPT and co-founder of Safe Superintelligence (SSI), another hot AI startup, to work at Meta, though he was unsuccessful. 'He is throwing insane amounts of money at people," the person said. The gambit shows Mr Zuckerberg's continued willingness to make mighty, long-term bets to reinvent his firm, even if his foray into the metaverse has been a costly flop. 'This is very Zuckerbergian to do these big, loud stunts just to prove how committed he is," says Eric Seufert, an independent tech analyst. And while the sums are big, they may not be as reckless as some pundits argued when reports surfaced that Meta was buying its stake in Scale AI, considering how much of Meta's $1.7trn market value is riding on its success in AI. The acquisitions also involve people with close personal ties and shared ideals. Mr Friedman, former boss of GitHub, a software-development platform owned by Microsoft, is friends with Mr Zuckerberg. He is part of Meta's Advisory Group, which provides guidance to the company. And, like Mr Zuckerberg, he is a lover of ancient Rome. He and Mr Gross helped launch a contest called the Vesuvius Challenge to decode scrolls buried in Herculaneum after Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. Mr Friedman and Mr Gross are savvy AI investors. Some call their VC firm the AI equivalent of Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley juggernaut born out of the dotcom boom. Mr Friedman invested in Scale AI and is close to Mr Wang. Mr Gross is a co-founder of Mr Sutskever's SSI, which was recently valued at $32bn less than a year after its birth. It is not clear what will happen to NFDG. People who know the two say that joining Meta appeals not only for the generous terms, but also the excitement of working for an AI heavyweight and the money and computing power it will put at their disposal. 'This is the tech battle of our time," says one person close to the pair. Mr Zuckerberg intends to win.
Otago Daily Times
09-05-2025
- Science
- Otago Daily Times
Scans unravel the mystery of scrolls
Unread for 2000 years, this scroll from Herculaneum has been virtually unwrapped and the ink identified. The eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD is one of the best-known human catastrophes and Pompeii is regularly thronged with visitors who can walk down the Roman streets, enter the houses and even view the street stalls that once sold fast food to passersby. But 18km to the north, on the shores of the Bay of Naples, lies a second buried city, Herculaneum. It is much easier to excavate Pompeii because the volcanic ash there is relatively soft. At Herculaneum, it is rock hard and at least 25m thick, so only a fraction of the city has been opened. In 1750, a villager encountered a marble pavement while digging in his field. Over the next 14 years, the Swiss engineer Karl Weber directed excavations that had to tunnel down and explore by a flickering light. In what has been described as the first scientific excavation, he uncovered a wonderfully intact Roman villa. As he explored the rooms, he came across what looked like burnt lengths of firewood. Closer examination revealed that these were papyrus scrolls. He had made a unique find, a complete ancient library. There have been numerous attempts since to unravel and read these, but when you unroll them, they disintegrate. The villa was evidently owned by Lucius Caesoninus, father-in-law of Julius Caesar and patron of the poet and philosopher Philodemus. By 79AD, it was probably his son who lived in this sumptuous villa and enjoyed his father's library. In 2023, Nat Friedman, a Silicon Valley tech magnate, proposed the "Vesuvius Challenge", now with multiple sponsors offering prizes in the millions of dollars for progressive achievements: deciphering the first word, the first line and the person or team able to provide a significant part of the text. It was advances in medical diagnoses that provided the breakthrough. Just as a scan probes into the human body, X-ray computed tomography can digitally distinguish the pages and flatten the contents of a scroll. Then infrared analyses and AI has been deployed to identify the written characters. The first word to be deciphered was "purple" but this was the tip of the iceberg. The prize has now been awarded to three young scientists, who have read part of a text ascribed to Philodemus, that asks "Do things that are available in lesser quantities afford more pleasure than those available in abundance?". Who knows what else awaits in this unique library.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Researchers Decipher Herculaneum Scrolls Found at Pompeii
Researchers have virtually unfurled a Herculaneum scroll which was rescued from Pompeii after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The Herculaneum scrolls, first discovered within Pompeii's ruins in 1752, have long beguiled scientists. Written on papyrus using carbon-based ink, the scrolls cannot be physically opened without disintegrating. With the advent of digital AI technology, researchers have been given a new opportunity to discover the scrolls' the technology, they were able to decipher the contents and even identify the author of an ancient piece entitled 'On Vices.' The tome, on how to live a virtuous life, was written by Greek Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, who lived in Herculaneum from 110 B.C. until 35 B.C. The discovery of his work within the ruins of Pompeii indicates that Philodemus' work was still highly regarded amongst modern people. 'Finding the full title of a work inside a scroll that has been unread for two millennia is an astonishing achievement,' Richard Ovenden, who works at the library which houses the scrolls, told the Daily Mail. '[It] illustrates the huge potential for AI to transform arts and humanities scholarship, our understanding of the past, and breathes new life into ancient artifacts.' Although the AI technology allows researchers to virtually unroll the scrolls, reading what was inscribed within them is still a difficult task. The document was eventually unfurled and decoded by two separate research teams: Marcel Roth and Micha Nowak from the University of Würzburg, Germany; and Sean Johnson with Vesuvius Challenge, a program which awards cash prizes to those who are able to decipher the scrolls. 'The simultaneous reproduction of the title image from multiple sources, along with independent scholarly review, provides a high degree of confidence in the reading,' the Bodleian Libraries said. As it turns out, their hard work paid off. Roth and Nowak took home the very first Vesuvius Challenge Title Prize, which included a reward of $60,000.
CNN
06-05-2025
- Science
- CNN
Title and author of burned, still-rolled scroll decoded after nearly 2,000 years
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN — Researchers working to decipher the contents of a burned, still-rolled scroll have uncovered both the author and the title of the text nearly 2,000 years after it was buried in the Mount Vesuvius eruption. The scroll — named PHerc. 172 — is one of hundreds from the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum, which was buried under volcanic debris when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, according to the Vesuvius Challenge, an initiative focused on decoding the texts of the Herculaneum scrolls without needing to unroll them. Preserved under mud and ash in a villa believed to have been once owned by the father-in-law of Julius Caesar, the scrolls were discovered by an Italian farmer in the 18th century. Burned so badly they were carbonized, they are extremely fragile. Over the years, scholars have tried a range of methods to unroll them, including using weights, chemicals, gases and pulverization, though this often led to the scrolls being damaged or destroyed. The Vesuvius Challenge was launched in 2023 to encourage researchers from around the world to try and decipher the scrolls by virtually unwrapping and decoding them. Now, Marcel Roth and Micha Nowak, graduate students from Germany's University of Würzburg, have uncovered the title and author of PHerc. 172. Vesuvius Challenge researcher Sean Johnson made the same discovery around the same time, and both findings were independently reviewed by the competition's papyrological team, according to a Tuesday press release from Oxford University's Bodleian Libraries, where the scroll is housed. The text deciphered identifies the scroll as 'On Vices' by the Greek philosopher Philodemus, according to the Vesuvius Challenge. It is a part of Philodemus' ethical treatise known in full as 'On Vices and Their Opposite Virtues and In Whom They Are and About What,' and could even be the first book in the series, though this is not yet clear. Oxford University's Bodleian Libraries suggests that the book number could 'plausibly' be read as an alpha, which would indicate that the scroll is book one in the series, but it could also be other numbers, such as a delta, which would mean it is book four. Scholars have generally thought that the first book of 'On Vices' was a text called 'On Flattery,' but the content of PHerc. 172 does not correspond with this. Philodemus, according to the Bodleian Libraries, was an Epicurean philosopher whose teachings 'emphasise the pursuit of pleasure as central to a good life.' The majority of the scrolls found preserved in the Herculaneum villa were his works, Bodleian Libraries said. Michael McOsker, a researcher in papyrology at University College London, who is also a member of the Vesuvius Challenge papyrology team, called the new discovery a 'very exciting development.' 'Other books from the On Vices and their Opposite Virtues are known from the papyri that were physically unrolled — best known are On Property Management (book 9, presumably the opposite virtue to greed) and On Arrogance (book 10, presumably the opposite vice to having a correct evaluation of yourself), but there are others too,' McOsker said. 'This will be a great opportunity to learn more about Philodemus' ethical views and to get a better view of the On Vices as a whole, especially if it turns out to be the first book,' McOsker said. This find, the first time a scroll's title has been read, is the latest from the Vesuvius Challenge. In October 2023, the first full word from one of the unopened ancient papyri was decoded with the help of computer technology and advanced artificial intelligence. The word was 'πορφυρας' or 'porphyras,' which is Greek for purple. And in February, researchers investigating columns of text from PHerc. 172 identified the word 'διατροπή,' meaning 'disgust,' which appears twice within a few columns of text, the Bodleian Libraries said.
