Latest news with #Aeneas
Business Insider
19 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Google's (GOOGL) DeepMind Introduces AI Model for Ancient Roman Inscriptions
Researchers from tech giant Google's (GOOGL) DeepMind recently introduced Aeneas, an AI model that is designed to help historians understand and interpret ancient Roman inscriptions. These writings, which can be found on monuments, everyday objects, and even graffiti, are important for learning about Roman life, but are often incomplete or damaged. Traditionally, analyzing them required a lot of manual work. However, Aeneas solves this problem by finding similar texts, restoring missing pieces, and placing inscriptions in their historical context much faster than before. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. The model was created by the University of Nottingham in partnership with the Universities of Warwick, Oxford, and the Athens University of Economics and Business. It builds on a previous tool called Ithaca, which focused on Greek inscriptions, but has been expanded to add Latin and uses a much larger database of over 176,000 examples. Interestingly, Aeneas can process both text and images, which allows it to figure out where an inscription came from and fill in gaps even when the missing length is unknown. This makes it especially useful for damaged artifacts. Notably, Aeneas has already proven to be useful in debates about famous inscriptions, such as the Res Gestae of Augustus. Instead of predicting one exact date, it provides a range of likely dates and explains the clues it used. In addition, tests with professional historians showed that the tool improved their accuracy and helped them spot connections they might not have noticed otherwise. As a result, Aeneas is being shared openly to support research and museum work, with plans to add other ancient languages and artifacts in the future. Is Google Stock a Good Buy? Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on GOOGL stock based on 27 Buys and nine Holds assigned in the past three months. Furthermore, the average GOOGL price target of $215.09 per share implies 12.5% upside potential.
Qatar Tribune
a day ago
- Science
- Qatar Tribune
AI helps Latin scholars decipher ancient Roman texts
Agencies Around 1,500 Latin inscriptions are discovered every year, offering an invaluable view into the daily life of ancient Romans -- and posing a daunting challenge for the historians tasked with interpreting them. But a new artificial intelligence tool, partly developed by Google researchers, can now help Latin scholars piece together these puzzles from the past, according to a new study. Inscriptions in Latin were commonplace across the Roman world, from laying out the decrees of emperors to graffiti on the city streets. One mosaic outside a home in the ancient city of Pompeii even warns: 'Beware of the dog'. These inscriptions are 'so precious to historians because they offer first-hand evidence of ancient thought, language, society and history', said study co-author Yannis Assael, a researcher at Google's AI lab DeepMind. 'What makes them unique is that they are written by the ancient people themselves across all social classes on any subject. It's not just history written by the elite,' Assael, who co-designed the AI model, told a press conference. However these texts have often been damaged over the millennia. 'We usually don't know where and when they were written,' Assael said. So the researchers created a generative neural network, which is an AI tool that can be trained to identify complex relationships between types of data. They named their model Aeneas, after the Trojan hero and son of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. It was trained on data about the dates, locations and meanings of Latin transcriptions from an empire that spanned five million square kilometres over two millennia. Thea Sommerschield, an epigrapher at the University of Nottingham who co-designed the AI model, said that 'studying history through inscriptions is like solving a gigantic jigsaw puzzle'.'You can't solve the puzzle with a single isolated piece, even though you know information like its color or its shape,' she explained. 'To solve the puzzle, you need to use that information to find the pieces that connect to it.' This can be a huge job. Latin scholars have to compare inscriptions against 'potentially hundreds of parallels', a task which 'demands extraordinary erudition' and 'laborious manual searches' through massive library and museum collections, the study in the journal Nature said. The researchers trained their model on 176,861 inscriptions -- worth up to 16 million characters -- five percent of which contained images. It can now estimate the location of an inscription among the 62 Roman provinces, offer a decade when it was produced and even guess what missing sections might have contained, they said. To test their model, the team asked Aeneas to analyse a famous inscription called 'Res Gestae Divi Augusti', in which Rome's first emperor Augustus detailed his accomplishments. Debate still rages between historians about when exactly the text was written. Though the text is riddled with exaggerations, irrelevant dates and erroneous geographical references, the researchers said that Aeneas was able to use subtle clues such as archaic spelling to land on two possible datesthe two being debated between historians. The best results came when historians used the AI model together with their skills as researchers, rather than relying solely on one or the other, the study said. 'Since their breakthrough, generative neural networks have seemed at odds with educational goals, with fears that relying on AI hinders critical thinking rather than enhances knowledge,' said study co-author Robbe Wulgaert, a Belgian AI researcher.
TECHx
5 days ago
- Science
- TECHx
Google Unveils AI Tool to Decode Ancient Roman Inscriptions
Home » Emerging technologies » Artificial Intelligence » Google Unveils AI Tool to Decode Ancient Roman Inscriptions Google DeepMind has revealed a new artificial intelligence tool called Aeneas, developed to help historians study ancient Roman inscriptions, The Guardian reported. The tool is designed to analyze and restore Latin texts that are often damaged or incomplete. It identifies the origin and estimated date of the inscriptions and can suggest missing words. According to DeepMind, Aeneas was created in collaboration with historians, including Dr. Thea Sommerschield from the University of Nottingham. The AI was trained on a dataset of nearly 200,000 Latin inscriptions, covering more than 16 million characters. These inscriptions, found on monuments, tombs, and everyday objects, offer key insights into life in ancient Rome. However, many inscriptions are partially destroyed or worn. Aeneas uses linguistic and historical patterns to compare the damaged texts with similar examples from the 7th century BC to the 8th century AD. The tool can determine the Roman province of origin. It estimates the date of the inscription within a 13-year range. DeepMind reported that Aeneas can also propose likely words for missing text segments. It has been tested on inscriptions where the original wording is already known, delivering accurate results. The AI successfully interpreted famous examples like the Res Gestae Divi Augusti and linked similar texts across regions of the Roman Empire. Historians described the tool as 'transformative.' In a trial involving 23 researchers, 90% found Aeneas useful in their analysis.
Hindustan Times
5 days ago
- Science
- Hindustan Times
AI just cracked the code: Ancient Roman messages erased for centuries are finally revealed
Centuries after the Roman Empire left its mark across, many of its stories still sit locked inside damaged stone and pottery. In recent years, researchers faced the daunting problem of reading ancient Latin inscriptions where much of the text had been lost to time. These fragments, once etched for the public or to honour the dead, are now more like half-finished sentences. For historians, each is a puzzle with missing pieces. New technology is helping to reveal lost Roman stories by restoring Latin inscriptions once thought too damaged to ever read.(Unsplash) AI helps fill in the blanks Now, a fresh approach is taking shape. Historians have teamed up with Google DeepMind to create a new tool, called Aeneas, that helps fill in the blanks of broken inscriptions. The software owes its name to a character from Roman legend, but its work is entirely grounded in the digital age. Unlike earlier methods that leaned on guesswork or limited cross-checking, Aeneas draws on a huge database, learning from thousands of ancient Latin writings and images. This helps it suggest which words might be missing when researchers come across another cracked tablet or worn slab. At the heart of the tool is a single aim. Help experts reconstruct Latin text where gaps have left meaning uncertain or lost. Aeneas can look at what remains, compare it to patterns and phrases found in its training set of over 170,000 inscriptions, and offer predictions for what likely belongs in the missing sections. This works even if the gap's length is unknown. In tests with simulated damage, Aeneas restored missing words with a level of accuracy that has surprised the academic community. When paired with real experts, the combined team recovered significantly more of the original meaning than either could achieve on their own. What sets Aeneas apart? What sets Aeneas apart is its focus on practicality. It not only predicts lost chunks of text but also links researchers to similar inscriptions or key people and places named elsewhere in ancient writing. In studies, historians found these suggestions valuable nine out of ten times when looking for context or starting new research threads. The tool can also estimate, with reasonable certainty, when and where in the Roman world an inscription was created. Tests show it can date some inscriptions to within a decade and identify the region in about three out of four cases. This brings new clarity to questions that once lingered for years. Historians note that Latin inscriptions are among the richest sources for everyday Roman life, records of law, religion, military affairs, commerce, and even quiet personal messages. Across the Mediterranean and beyond, new finds surface, but many carry breaks, erosion, or missing pieces that have always made interpretation slow. By bringing Aeneas into the research process, scholars can now piece together stories more quickly and fill in many of those crucial missing details. While the tool was built with Roman Latin in mind, experts think its approach could help with other languages and periods, where time has left only fragments. It is already free to use and available to the wider research community online. Some scholars urge caution, noting that machines can suggest, but people must always check the answer against what is known about the history, location, and context. The hope is that Aeneas will not just fix broken sentences but foster new discoveries and spark fresh studies. As more ancient words return to light, a bigger story about the Roman world is slowly coming back together - one complete sentence at a time.
NDTV
5 days ago
- Science
- NDTV
Google's New AI Can Read Ancient Roman Inscriptions; Historians Call It "Jaw-Dropping"
Google DeepMind has introduced a new artificial intelligence tool called Aeneas, designed to assist historians in studying ancient Roman inscriptions, according to a report by The Guardian. The tool helps identify the origin and date of the inscriptions and suggests missing words in damaged or incomplete texts. Aeneas, named after the Trojan hero from Roman mythology, was developed in collaboration with historians, including Dr Thea Sommerschield from the University of Nottingham. The AI was trained on a database of nearly 200,000 Latin inscriptions, containing more than 16 million characters. The inscriptions, found on monuments, tombs, and even everyday items, are valuable records of life in ancient Rome. However, many are fragmented or worn, making them difficult to interpret. Aeneas analyses the text and sometimes images from an inscription and compares it with similar examples from the 7th century BC to the 8th century AD. It uses deeper linguistic and historical patterns, not just keyword matches, to find connections, according to The Guardian. The AI can determine the likely Roman province where an inscription was created and estimate its date within about 13 years. It also proposes possible words to fill in missing parts, tested so far on texts where the original wording is already known. In tests, Aeneas provided accurate insights into famous inscriptions such as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti and linked similar texts across different regions of the Roman Empire. Historians called the tool "transformative," with 23 researchers finding it useful in 90% of cases. Experts believe Aeneas will open new opportunities in the study of Latin inscriptions, making it easier for more people to contribute to historical research without needing access to rare materials or deep prior expertise. However, scholars emphasise the importance of using the tool thoughtfully and critically.
