AI Deciphers Ancient Scrolls Buried by Vesuvius, Revealing Insights into Philosophy of Pleasure
• Scholars use AI to read ancient scrolls buried in 79AD Vesuvius eruption, making huge strides in decoding previously unreadable texts
• Winning team of 3 students awarded $700K grand prize in Vesuvius Challenge contest for reading 2,000 Greek letters from one scroll
• Scroll discusses sources of pleasure, touching on music, food, and philosophical questions around what constitutes pleasure
• Technology could now be applied to read hundreds more Herculaneum scrolls and texts wrapped around Egyptian mummies
• Contest continues to further decode this scroll and develop automated process to read the many other excavated scrolls