Google DeepMind's new AI can help historians understand ancient Latin inscriptions

To do this, Aeneas takes in partial transcriptions of an inscription alongside a scanned image of it. Using these, it gives possible dates and places of origins for the engraving, along with potential fill-ins for any missing text. For example, a slab damaged at the start and continuing with ... us populusque Romanus would likely prompt Aeneas to guess that Senat comes before us to create the phrase Senatus populusque Romanus, "The Senate and the people of Rome." This is similar to how Ithaca works. But Aeneas also cross-references the text with a stored database of almost 150,000 inscriptions, which originated everywhere from modern-day Britain to modern-day Iraq, to give possible parallels--other catalogued Latin engravings that feature similar words, phrases, and analogies.