News Nvidia GPU Used To Decipher Ancient Greco-Roman Scroll

[Admin]

Undergrad student used his GTX 1070 and machine learning software to decipher a word in a charred unopened scroll.

Nvidia GPU Used To Decipher Ancient Greco-Roman Scroll : Read more

 

[bit_user]

From what I've read elsewhere, they're using CT-scans. A big challenge is how even to virtually unwrap the scroll, since they have a 3D dataset of it in its wrapped state. You cannot physically unwrap it, because it's basically like a stick of charcoal. So, the task is to find the tiny bits of ink, assemble them into letters, and try to decipher what they say.

I hadn't heard he did this with just a GTX 1070, which doesn't even have any tensor cores. Imagine what he'll be able to do with a RTX 4090!

 

[P.Amini]

From what I've read elsewhere, they're using CT-scans. A big challenge is how even to virtually unwrap the scroll, since they have a 3D dataset of it in its wrapped state. You cannot physically unwrap it, because it's basically like a stick of charcoal. So, the task is to find the tiny bits of ink, assemble them into letters, and try to decipher what they say.

I hadn't heard he did this with just a GTX 1070, which doesn't even have any tensor cores. Imagine what he'll be able to do with a RTX 4090!

What is going on here?!

 

[bit_user]

What is going on here?!

I don't understand your question.

Since the Nvidia blog entry doesn't present much more information than the Toms article, here's a better explanation of the challenge:

AI Reads Ancient Scroll Charred by Mount Vesuvius in Tech First

For the first time, a machine learning technique has revealed Greek words in CT scans of fragile rolled-up papyrus

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[Geef]

It was deciphered to read "Oh sh💩, is the mountain erupting?"

 

[bit_user]

It was deciphered to read "Oh sh💩, is the mountain erupting?"

Ha ha. Okay, maybe that was @P.Amini 's point, too.

Obviously, these are rolled-up scrolls in a library - not tweets or instant messages. I'm pretty sure papyrus was too expensive for them even to keep diaries on it.

 

[Geef]

Ha ha. Okay, maybe that was @P.Amini 's point, too.

Obviously, these are rolled-up scrolls in a library - not tweets or instant messages. I'm pretty sure papyrus was too expensive for them even to keep diaries on it.

Yeah instant messaging in those times was only done by kings. It really pissed off certain kings when all they got was a papyrus 💩 emoji from the next kingdom over. Wars may have begun that way! 😱

 

[KyaraM]

That's really cool. Love that he did it with a GTX 1070, too. I think I will always have a soft spot for that card, it's such an amazing piece of tech. Looking forward to more of this story!

 

[bit_user]

Love that he did it with a GTX 1070, too. I think I will always have a soft spot for that card, it's such an amazing piece of tech.

Yeah, we got a GTX 1080 at work, back when we first started dabbling with machine learning. It's no longer used for that purpose, but still running in a machine and I still think of it as "fast" and "good card", purely on the basis of how well it performed at launch. This, even though it's long been surpassed by much cheaper cards and isn't even very efficient by today's standards.