In the final episode of season 2 of the Confluence podcast, Brent Seales of University of Kentucky joins the show to talk about his groundbreaking work using AI and CT scanning to digitally unwrap ancient Herculaneum scrolls buried by Mount Vesuvius, making previously unreadable texts accessible. The conversation includes insights on collaboration with Nat Friedman, the Vesuvius Challenge, and the intersection of technology and humanities scholarship, along with Seales' new role directing an AI and Humanities Institute funded by Eric Schmidt's foundation.Episode Links:Brent Seales on LinkedInUniversity of Kentucky websiteConfluence S2E8 - Audacity, Antiquity, and AI with Brent’s colleague Christy ChapmanThe Vesuvius Challenge websitePics of the scrolls and the fragments60 Minutes EpisodePBS DocumentaryNBC News StoryUniversity of KentuckyWatch this episode on YouTube or Spotify.About Brent Seales:Dr. W. Brent Seales is the Stanley and Karen Pigman Chair of Heritage Science and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Kentucky. He earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has held research positions at INRIA Sophia-Antipolis, UNC Chapel Hill, Google (Paris), and the Getty Conservation Institute. The Heritage Science research lab (EduceLab) founded by Seales at the University of Kentucky applies techniques in machine learning and data science to the digital restoration of damaged materials. The research program is funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Google. Seales is a co-founder of the Vesuvius Challenge, an international contest formed around the goal of the virtual unwrapping of Herculaneum scrolls. He continues to work with challenging, damaged material (Herculaneum Scrolls, Dead Sea Scrolls), with notable successes in the scroll from En-Gedi (Leviticus), the Morgan MS M.910 (The Acts of the Apostles), and PHerc.Paris.3 and 4 (Philodemus / Epicureanism). The recovery of readable text from still-unopened material has been hailed worldwide as an astonishing achievement fueled by open scholarship, interdisciplinary collaboration, and extraordinary leadership generosity.-----The Confluence podcast is a collaboration between TRXL and AVAIL, and is produced by TRXL Media.Learn more about them at https://trxl.co/media and https://getavail.comLearn more about the Confluence podcast at

Ver todos los episodios