An Ancient Roman Scroll on Pleasure Was Just Decoded Using AI

A Roman scroll, partially preserved when it was buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, has been virtually unwrapped and decoded using artificial intelligence. The feat was achieved by three contestants in the Vesuvius Challenge, a competition launched in March 2023 in which people around the world raced to read the ancient Herculaneum papyri. Papyrologists working with the Vesuvius Challenge believe the scroll contains "never-before-seen text from antiquity," and the text in question is a piece of Epicurean philosophy on the subject of pleasure. The winning submission shows ancient Greek letters on a large patch of scroll, and the author seems to be discussing the question: are things that are scarce more pleasurable as a result? The author, whose identity is unconfirmed, doesn't think so: "As too in the case of food, we do not right away believe things that are scarce to be absolutely more pleasant than those which are abundant," one passage from the scroll reads.