The Perseus Digital Library is excited to share that it has been selected for a 2025 Humanities and AI Virtual Institute (HAVI) award from Schmidt Sciences. Our project “Beyond Translation: Opening up the Human Record” seeks to transform how we engage with texts in ancient languages and across cultures. While LLMs can now offer translations of both modern and ancient languages, translation is only the beginning of how we engage with texts in ancient languages. We will investigate how LLMs can be used not just to translate but also to aid and expand our understanding of these texts and related objects from the material record. By exploring how LLMs can enhance the linking of words and phrases to reference works such as grammars, dictionaries and encyclopedias; place names to maps, and texts to their commentaries and scholarship over time, we seek to provide a dynamic gateway into original sources.

Working with David Smith of Northeastern University and his research team, this project will draw on the wealth of open data available through the Perseus Digital Library as well as the dataset and OCR of Google Books released by Harvard’s Institutional Books 1.0 (IB1). This work will seek to produce annotated corpora, commentaries, comparative studies and to help set new benchmarks for explainable AI in the humanities. It will also build upon previous work on Beyond Translation, generously funded by the NEH.

We would like to thank Schmidt Sciences HAVI Institute for this opportunity! HAVI supports groundbreaking work at the intersection of AI and the humanities. This year’s 23 teams, based across multiple continents and disciplines, will use AI to open new windows into human history, culture, language, and creativity. You can read more about the projects here.