Navigating history with AI: The promise and perils of digital time travel

Will AI deepen our understanding of human history, or will it become the tool that brings an end to human history? Currently, there is evidence to support both perspectives.

AI reveals the past

A major prize was awarded this week to three computer science students who used AI, specifically machine learning (ML) and neural networks, to successfully read and translate an ancient Roman scroll recovered from Herculaneum near Pompeii. I did.

The document, part of a collection known as the Scrolls of Herculaneum, was recovered from what is believed to have been a large library in a villa belonging to Julius Caesar's father-in-law. Between 1752 and 1754, around 1,800 fragments of ancient papyrus scrolls, probably equivalent to his original 1,000 volumes, were excavated from the villa. The scroll was badly damaged during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and has been described as looking like a log left in a campfire.

As the Herculaneum Society points out, these blackened, carbonized, and incredibly fragile scrolls constitute the largest extant library of classical antiquity and are reshaping our understanding of the ancient world. There may be a potential preservation of lost philosophical dialogues and insights that could form. Attempts to read these documents have so far been unsuccessful. This is because if you handle the scroll, it will collapse.

The papyrus reading was accomplished by three contestants in the Vesuvius Challenge, a competition launched in March 2023 in which people from around the world compete to read the ancient Herculaneum Papyrus. The winner was able to solve it virtually and read over 2,000 Greek letters.According to reports economist, this text is thought to be a previously unknown work on pleasure by Philodemus, an Epicurean philosopher who lived in Herculaneum. Now, it seems that other scrolls can be read as well.

Robert Fowler, a prominent classical scholar and president of the Herculaneum Society, said: bloomberg: “Some of these documents can completely rewrite the history of important periods of the ancient world. This is the society that gave rise to the modern Western world.”

This discovery is an example of how AI is uncovering the past, deepening our knowledge, and deepening our understanding of the world. In addition to these scrolls, deep learning techniques are also being applied to archaeology.

These applications can help sort pottery shards and locate shipwrecks with sonar imagery, which it says is “opening new windows into the past.” new york times. Another project using AI and robotics aims to restore works of art from Pompeii. The first target of the RePAIR project (an acronym for Rebuilding the Past: Combining Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Cultural Heritage) is a pair of 2,000-year-old frescoes.

AI: A threat to history?

These use cases demonstrate that the potential applications of AI in historical research are vast and diverse. But some believe that AI has the potential to fundamentally change human history and culture, perhaps not for the better. This proves that AI (in fact, any advanced technology) has a dual nature, with both positive and negative impacts.

According to reports luckYuval Noah Harari, the historian and author of A Complete History of Sapiens, told an audience last fall. [AI] It will devour all human culture. [everything we’ve achieved] Since the Stone Age, a new culture brought by alien intelligence has begun to emerge. Harari warned, “Potentially we are talking about the end of human history, the end of the era of human domination.''

This suggests that AI models may gain the ability to reconstruct history according to their own analysis, potentially overwriting existing consensus when interpreting the lessons of the past. If true, AI could become a dominant force in shaping the world, and humans will need to adapt to its impact, change our view of the past, and change our cultural identity. There will be.

The need for digital integrity

One idea to prevent contamination of the historical record is to better preserve what currently exists as reference points. As the example of the Herculaneum scrolls shows, a storage medium is essential for successful preservation. Preserving content digitally is not enough. This can also deteriorate.

One possibility comes from Microsoft in the form of Project Silica. Using glass as the medium and laser options for writing and reading data creates a storage medium that could potentially last thousands of years without degrading. This could be a great archival system for retrieving historical records from before AI.

Beyond the potential threat of alien intelligence, there is a threat that springs from the human mind. A recent New York Times editorial warned: “History can be a powerful tool for manipulation and fraud. The same generative AI that can disguise current events can also disguise past events.”

This is another way of saying that it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish what is real and what is fake, and this can apply to historical records as well. The authors point out that “falsified documents are an important part of many efforts to rewrite the historical record.”

For example, YouTube viewers can watch Richard Nixon's speech written in case the 1969 moon landing ended in disaster. Luckily we didn't have to deliver. But researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created this deepfake to show how AI can manipulate our shared sense of history.

MIT's Francesca Panetta said of deepfakes: “This alternate history shows how new technology obfuscates the truth around us and challenges viewers to think carefully about the media they encounter every day. I'm encouraging that.”

Deepfakes have the potential to destroy trust in our current reality and fundamentally distort the historical record, increasing the need for strict standards and regulation of the creation and dissemination of AI-powered content. only.

If we have an opportunity to shape the path of AI and its impact on history, we need to do it now. Because current conditions determine long-term trends. Although we are still at the beginning of this new era, it is important to navigate these advances responsibly, ensuring that AI serves as a tool for enlightenment rather than confusion and deception. .

Rather than AI marking the end of human history, it is possible to make it the starting point for enlightenment.

Gary Grossman is Edelman's vice president of technology practice and global lead of the Edelman AI Center of Excellence.