0:00:04.140,0:00:08.774 Youssef: We always think about the potential of AI changing the future. 0:00:08.774,0:00:12.424 But what about the potential of AI changing the past? 0:00:12.424,0:00:14.554 My name is Youssef Nader. 0:00:14.554,0:00:16.434 I'm an Egyptian AI researcher 0:00:16.434,0:00:19.281 and a PhD student at the Free University in Berlin 0:00:19.281,0:00:24.501 and last year, I led the Vesuvius Grand Prize winning team 0:00:24.501,0:00:26.839 on exploring this very question. 0:00:27.780,0:00:32.260 You see, the story starts almost 2,000 years ago. 0:00:32.260,0:00:35.780 A Greek philosopher that we believe was Philodemus of Gadara 0:00:35.780,0:00:39.780 sat in one of the many rooms of the Villa dei Papiri. 0:00:39.795,0:00:43.205 He talked about music, he talked about pleasure, 0:00:43.205,0:00:45.385 he talked about what makes things enjoyable, 0:00:45.385,0:00:47.795 questions that still plague us until today. 0:00:50.061,0:00:53.561 One of his scribes wrote down his thoughts on sheets of papyrus. 0:00:54.471,0:00:58.661 The sheets were rolled and stowed away for later generations. 0:00:59.923,0:01:03.923 Fast-forward 150 years, or even more 0:01:04.216,0:01:09.436 Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying Herculaneum, the villa 0:01:09.436,0:01:14.526 and the words of the philosopher under a sea of hot mud and ashes. 0:01:15.435,0:01:18.395 Now fast-forward again, to the 17th century. 0:01:18.395,0:01:21.085 People are excavating around the area. 0:01:21.085,0:01:25.805 They found beautiful statues, breathtaking frescoes 0:01:25.805,0:01:29.295 and some weird-looking pieces of charcoal, 0:01:29.295,0:01:31.485 like you see in this picture. 0:01:31.742,0:01:34.392 This is when the first scrolls were discovered, 0:01:34.392,0:01:37.862 and people were racing to excavate more of these. 0:01:38.052,0:01:42.382 What knowledge is included that is not known to us now? 0:01:42.382,0:01:46.032 What things should we know about these scrolls? 0:01:49.072,0:01:53.642 Julian: My name is Julian, and I am a digital archaeologist. 0:01:55.417,0:02:00.287 When the pyroclastic flow hit the scrolls, 0:02:00.287,0:02:02.497 it had a destructive effect. 0:02:03.297,0:02:05.487 It tore into them, 0:02:05.487,0:02:07.207 shredded off pieces, 0:02:07.207,0:02:09.427 and it charred them badly. 0:02:09.613,0:02:12.323 Even the deformation that you can see 0:02:12.662,0:02:14.482 happened at that point. 0:02:14.653,0:02:18.063 People, 250-something years ago, 0:02:18.313,0:02:21.923 were curious what's lying inside those scrolls, 0:02:22.033,0:02:25.013 hidden and not accessible anymore. 0:02:25.879,0:02:27.909 Because of a lack of technology, 0:02:27.909,0:02:31.949 they had to resort to physically unrolling 0:02:31.949,0:02:35.499 and thereby destroying most of the scrolls. 0:02:36.086,0:02:37.436 To this day, 0:02:37.436,0:02:40.997 only the most damaged and deformed scrolls 0:02:40.997,0:02:44.717 remain in their initial, rolled-up configuration. 0:02:45.407,0:02:47.847 Fast-forwarding a little bit, 0:02:47.847,0:02:49.957 the computer age arrives. 0:02:49.957,0:02:52.427 Youssef and I are born. 0:02:53.107,0:02:55.757 We are going on and getting our education -- 0:02:55.757,0:02:56.819 (Julian Chuckles) 0:02:56.819,0:02:57.749 (Audience Laughs) 0:02:57.749,0:03:02.049 and well... at the same time, Brent Seales, 0:03:02.049,0:03:03.899 a researcher and professor, 0:03:03.899,0:03:07.119 had the idea to use CT scan technology 0:03:07.119,0:03:10.259 to actually digitilize the scrolls, 0:03:10.259,0:03:12.179 with the hope of, one day, 0:03:12.179,0:03:15.549 digitally unrolling them. 0:03:16.078,0:03:19.738 Behind me, you can see a video of such a CT scan, 0:03:19.738,0:03:22.928 and it goes through the CT scan 3D volume, 0:03:22.928,0:03:24.178 layer by layer. 0:03:24.705,0:03:28.555 The papyrus is visible as a spiral, 0:03:28.555,0:03:31.265 and you can see it's tightly wound-up, 0:03:31.265,0:03:34.265 sometimes touching each other, flaying off. 0:03:34.265,0:03:38.265 It's a difficult question, how to unroll this digitally. 0:03:38.697,0:03:42.107 Nat Friedman, a Silicon Valley investor, 0:03:42.107,0:03:45.757 also saw this research, and he wanted to help. 0:03:46.395,0:03:48.525 That was in 2022. 0:03:48.593,0:03:52.023 He reached out, and together with Brent Seales, 0:03:52.023,0:03:54.413 they created the Vesuvius Challenge, 0:03:54.863,0:04:00.113 with the goal to motivate nerds all over the world to solve this problem. 0:04:00.486,0:04:02.051 (Julian chuckles) 0:04:02.051,0:04:03.781 They created a grand prize, 0:04:03.781,0:04:07.251 promising eternal glory and monetary incentives 0:04:07.251,0:04:08.941 to anyone who could do that 0:04:08.941,0:04:10.894 (Julian Chuckles) 0:04:10.894,0:04:13.274 I myself saw that on the internet 0:04:13.274,0:04:17.284 while writing my master's thesis at ETH Zurich, in robotics 0:04:17.284,0:04:20.524 and I was instantly happy to solve it-- 0:04:20.524,0:04:23.073 or at least try, why not, you know? 0:04:23.073,0:04:26.843 And I went on, joined the Discord community 0:04:26.843,0:04:29.743 where all the people that were also contestants 0:04:29.743,0:04:31.343 and playing with the scroll data 0:04:31.343,0:04:33.373 were exchanging ideas 0:04:33.373,0:04:36.483 and I joined there and started working on it. 0:04:37.463,0:04:39.423 Also there, on Discord, 0:04:39.423,0:04:41.193 I met Youssef and Luke [Farritor], 0:04:41.193,0:04:42.656 who would become my teammates, 0:04:42.656,0:04:45.596 and with whom I would actually win the grand prize. 0:04:46.136,0:04:50.126 Surprisingly, it went on, and made global headline news. 0:04:50.465,0:04:52.815 It even got into the British tabloids. 0:04:53.273,0:04:56.043 (Audience Laughs) 0:04:56.043,0:05:00.572 So when we started, there were two main problems still remaining. 0:05:00.996,0:05:03.716 One, you had to unroll the scroll. 0:05:03.748,0:05:07.081 And two, you then had to make the ink visible. 0:05:07.169,0:05:09.919 Youssef will tell you more about that part.