Lecture by
Georg Vogeler

Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Institut für Digitale Geisteswissenschaften

Digital transformation of manuscripts studies is taking the next step: We are getting used to search for manuscripts in online catalogues or have access to digital images of the manuscript. We are glad that texts are made available online as they support the identification of texts in the manuscripts. Since a couple of years, we realise that handwritten text is not an unsolvable problem for automatic transcription and this can be deployed on large scale. Now, the transformer architectures being trained on large corpora of texts and images have brought "chatBots" as a tool for generic text, which might be even used for describing manuscripts. The talk will discuss the effects of these developments on manuscript studies in general. It takes deliberately the start with the anthropomorphisation of machines in the term "Artificial Intelligence". It will contrast this with the technological state of the art, the social reality of manuscript studies, and with epistemological considerations. But, don't worry, it won't be only meta-talk! It will build on real research work done: in the ERC  project DiDip in Graz, at IMAFO itself, or at the IRHT in Paris. It will highlight work of cataloguers, and show images of manuscripts - demonstrating what humans and machines make out of them.