Greek Dialogues - Extreme Interdisciplinarity: Artificial Intelligence and Greek Philology

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Tuesday 11 March 2025 5:00pm

Lecture Room 2, Lecture Block, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 9DA

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Date and Time: Tuesday, 11th March, 2025 at 17:00h GMT

Online: Access details below

Venue: Online and Lecture Room 2, The Lecture Block, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 9DA

 

We are delighted to invite you to the 42nd seminar in the Greek Dialogues series, where we explore the richness of Greek literature, history, and culture. This session features Professor Barbara Graziosi (Princeton University), who will present a paper inspired by Logion: Machine Learning for Greek Philology - a pioneering initiative led by classicists and computer scientists at Princeton University, working at the intersection of classical scholarship and artificial intelligence.

The seminar will explore how artificial intelligence can enhance our understanding of ancient texts and, conversely, how Greek philology presents unique challenges and opportunities for machine learning.

The Logion project employs Natural Language Processing (NLP) to assist in the restoration and interpretation of premodern Greek texts. Named after the ancient Greek word for “oracle,” Logion underscores that while machine-generated outputs can provide valuable insights, they always require human interpretation. Unlike traditional philological methods, Logion does not claim to resolve textual uncertainties but instead offers suggestions and inspiration for scholars working with ancient manuscripts.

For its Proof of Concept, the project has focused on the Byzantine polymath Michael Psellos, with ongoing expansion to Aristotle, Galen, and other major Greek authors. Looking ahead, the team aims to refine and adapt Logion to support the study of other languages, contributing to the preservation and understanding of the global archive of premodern texts.

The paper is structured in three parts, each addressing key issues at the intersection of artificial intelligence and Greek philology:

  • Open data and literary corpora
  • Deep neural networks and language acquisition
  • Statistical methods and hapax legomena

These examples illustrate both the potential and the challenges of extreme interdisciplinarity. Ultimately, they suggest that artificial intelligence can be a valuable tool for philologists, while scholars of antiquity, in turn, can contribute to some of today’s most exciting debates and developments in machine learning.

Join us as Professor Graziosi explores this ground-breaking fusion of technology and classical scholarship, offering a fresh perspective on how NLP can illuminate ancient texts in innovative ways.

Online Access Details

Topic: Greek Dialogues - Extreme Interdisciplinarity: Artificial Intelligence and Greek Philology
Date and Time: Tuesday 11th March, 2025 17:00h GMT

Join Zoom Meeting: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/87003992456?pwd=aR6XXTYmFBocBSF6aS5xHVhHgyPVbu.1

(If you cannot access the seminar by clicking on the link, copy the whole link and paste it into your web browser's address bar.)

Meeting ID: 870 0399 2456
Passcode: 246682

 

Livestreaming on:

: The Cambridge Centre for Greek Studies Channel

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