Invisible Languages

Applying AI To Ancient Languages

Kevin Dickinson | Big Think | 4th July 2023

A good use for AI: Translating surviving fragments of esoteric ancient languages. Israeli linguists have been training an AI to read Akkadian, the 5,000-year-old cuneiform script of the Assyrians and Babylonians. The AI can now make instant raw translations which humans must polish, but it is getting better at the nuances all the time. Can a reading of the Voynich Manuscript be far behind? (1,400 words)

Reading ancient texts would be nice, but it's a full time job reading all the modern ones... Let us do the hard work for you. We read hundreds of articles every day, and send you five outstanding pieces, plus a video and a podcast - leaving you time to read the Voynich Manuscript.

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The Far Invisible

Alan Jacobs | Hedgehog Review | 10th July 2023

A unified theory of Thomas Pynchon, written with close reference to Pynchon's sprawling novels. Pynchon is "America's theologian", exploring the spiritual effects of society's surrender to technology. His novels sum to an "elaborate, raucous, anarchic, and terrifyingly accurate portrait of all the forces, prosaic and demonic, that militate against the restoration of our full humanity" (13,000 words)