https://www.inverse.com/science/ai-code-break
"It is one of the seminal texts of world literature — and an exceedingly rare
example of an ancient written story that made it to modern times. The reason
why is not to do with production: Many ancient peoples were just as interested
in documenting their histories as modern humans (although perhaps not to the
extent of the Twitterati). Yet cracking the few, often fragmented pieces of
writing we have left from the ancient world is difficult — especially in places
devastated by colonialism."
"In Odysseus’s time, many people wrote on papyrus, but some would also directly
inscribe messages onto metal, stone, and pottery. These engraved texts are
technically called inscriptions. As with much of ancient literature, we only
have fragments of some inscriptions — many are lost to wear and tear."
"But Odysseus’ Ithaca now lends its name a neural network — essentially a kind
of algorithm — that has one purpose: To restore ancient, fragmented
inscriptions, and then read them. In a new paper published last week in the
journal Nature, the scientists behind the AI reveal how it works to crack
archaic codes."
