Conference will draw classics scholars from around the world to Rutgers
Scholars are looking to AI technology to analyze inscriptions at sites like this one in Termessos, an ancient city in Turkey. Credit: Carole Raddato
The scholars coming from around the world to Rutgers this week for a conference on artificial intelligence won’t be meeting in the science halls of Busch Campus, and they won’t be diving into topics like robotics and neural networks.
They’ll gather at the Alexander Library to explore how AI might advance the study of Plato, Cicero, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the teaching of ancient Greek and Latin.
The March 12-13 hybrid conference—AI and the Study of Antiquity—is the handiwork of the Department of Classics, a humanities department in SAS devoted to the study of ancient Greece and Rome, with roots that go back to the founding of the university.
The conference, which is also supported by Rutgers Libraries and the SAS Division of Humanities, aims to explore and assess how the newest technologies might assist and support scholars in their research into the ancient world.
"It has snowballed into a worldwide event," says classics professor T. Corey Brennan of a conference at Rutgers on AI and the study of antiquity.“AI is impacting all of us much more quickly and strongly than we would have guessed and I think we all want to get a handle on it,” says T. Corey Brennan, a professor in the Department of Classics and one of the conference organizers. “We all want to hear what people have to say about it and what they're doing with it.”
The conference covers everything from ethical concerns over AI to the potential benefits of new technologies like handwritten text recognition and remote sensing. There’s even a presentation on “Building an Egyptian Hieroglyph Recognition app through a Student Hackathon.”
The conference is drawing attention from around the world. Brennan said he initially envisioned a regional gathering with institutions along the Northeast Corridor. But international interest swelled, with scholars from England, France, Japan, Switzerland as well as the U.S. set to give presentations, and people from five continents registering to attend either in-person or virtually.
“It has snowballed into a worldwide event,” Brennan said.
The widespread interest shouldn’t come as any surprise, organizers say. Although classicists are immersed in the ancient world, they don’t shy away from 21st century technology. In fact, classical scholars have often been at the forefront of adopting advances in technology for their research.
Francesca Giannetti, the university’s digital humanities librarian and one of the conference organizers, noted that some of the earliest digital libraries and digital projects were created by classicists, such as the renowned Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.
"There are a lot of really practical uses of AI in classics," says Rutgers digital humanities librarian Francesca Giannetti. Researchers are now using AI technologies such as language models to read and recover the content of deteriorating ancient manuscripts or the worn-down inscriptions and imagery on ancient coins, she added. In one of the more stunning recent breakthroughs, researchers used AI to read a scroll damaged by the Mount Vesuvius eruption that destroyed Pompei in 79 CE.
“There was a very quick realization among classicists that computation and computer technologies would assist them in the work that they do,” Giannetti said. “There are a lot of really practical uses of AI in classics, and it makes perfect sense that there would be wide interest from a lot of classicists.”
Indeed, Brennan has been using handwritten text recognition technology to study manuscripts in two archives he manages, including the acclaimed Boncompagni Ludovisi Archive in Rome’s Villa Aurora. That archive contains documents relating to a noble Italian family of popes and princes that go back to the 14th century.
The technology not only allows Brennan to rapidly read and transcribe documents; it also makes the ancient materials accessible to students who analyze and write about the content.
“I could show you 12 new letters of Marie Antoinette writing to the Vatican Secretary of State,” Brennan said. “If you're a Rutgers sophomore and maybe had two years of French and never studied cursive writing, it's pretty intimidating.
“But with the digital humanities, they can grapple with the manuscripts and do original research.”
SAS student Lydia Francoeur, for example, documented the lives of generations of Boncompagni Ludovisi women, many of whom were sent to convents so their families wouldn’t have to pay marriage dowries.
“The stories of many Boncompagni Ludovisi women have escaped our attention,” Francoeur wrote.
Despite these advances, Brennan noted that the AI transcriptions are far from perfect and require him and his students to painstakingly review the text and make corrections.
“I don't think we'll be at a point in the foreseeable future where you do not want a human looking at the results of anything that AI has generated,” he said
The conference takes place at the library’s Teleconference Lecture Hall and will cover a lot of ground, everything from “Cicero Meets Artificial Intelligence” to “Remote sensing and the deme of Besa in Attica.” The presenters include Ethan Gruber, an expert on ancient coins, and Aaron Hershkowitz, a Rutgers PhD graduate now at the Institute for Advanced Study who will discuss the digitizing of paper impressions of ancient inscriptions known as squeezes.
For Giannetti, the conference helps Rutgers Libraries stay on the leading edge of technologies that can help make its own resources, such as its Badian Collection of coins from the Roman Republic, more accessible to the research community.
“If applying a new technology to study these objects makes sense for the research community, then we want to know about it as librarians,” she said. “We want to know what helps them study these rare and unique objects in our current technological environment?”
Brennan said he’s looking forward to checking out the range of approaches now available to antiquity scholars.
“Some approaches may not get us anywhere and others may be field-changing,” he said.
The conference ends with a presentation by Akash Kapur, an author and academic who studies the social and economic impact of AI.
“He’s interested in AI and ethics, and I think that at the end of the day, that's the talk that we need to hear,” Brennan said.
Advances in technology are helping Rutgers students transcribe handwritten documents like this one, the first page from the 1547 will of the future pope Gregory XIII Boncompagni, of Gregorian Calendar fame.