Centuries after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius entombed the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, archaeologists have amassed hundreds of scrolls from an ancient library known as the “Villa of the Papyri”. The scrolls had been carbonised by the hot volcanic gases that had left them too damaged to unravel, let alone read. But artificial intelligence has come to the rescue. Computer scientists deciphered the first letters from the scrolls in 2023 and, more recently, entire paragraphs of text and could soon open a new window into the past for historians.

Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Tom Standage, The Economist’s deputy editor; Luke Farritor, a computer scientist and Vesuvius challenge winner; Adrienne Mayor, a historian of science at Stanford University.

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