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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the augmented-intelligence dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Greg Kondrak, a computer scientist from University of Alberta's AI lab, claims to have begun decoding the mystery behind the unknown text with his novel algorithm, CTVNews reported.

[...] It is believed that the manuscript is somehow related to women's health but there is no solid clue, according to the report. People have made wild guesses regarding the code, with at least eight making firm claims – only to be debunked later on.

Kondark, however, took a different approach towards solving the problem – artificial intelligence. "Once you see it, once you find out the mystery, this is a natural human tendency to solve the puzzle," the computer scientist told CTVNews. "I was intrigued and thought I could contribute something new."

He and his co-author Bradley Hauer combined novel AI algorithms with statistical procedures to identify and translate the language. The approach, which had been used to translate United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 380 languages, came in handy and suggested the language was Hebrew, albeit with critical tweaks.

They found that the letters in every word had been reordered and the vowels were dropped in the code. The first complete sentence which the AI decrypted read, "She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people." One section of the text carries words that translate into "farmer", "light", "air", and "fire".

The translated line could be the starting of something big but it is a long way to go for Kondark, who stresses on the need of complementary human assistance. However, it is not clear how accurate the translation really is.

"Somebody with very good knowledge of Hebrew and who's a historian at the same time could take this evidence and follow this kind of clue," he said while highlighting the need of someone who could make sense of the translated text.

For those who may not be familiar with the manuscript, see Voynich Manuscript at Wikipedia, or read it yourself at archive.org (Javascript required).


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @05:57PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @05:57PM (#629519)

    It is believed that the manuscript is somehow related to women's health but there is no solid clue

    Women have always been hard to figure out.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:10PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:10PM (#629574) Journal

    +1 BIG TIME Insightful...married 32 years now and STILL haven't seen logical consistency in any way, lol.

    I know, I know, women are never logical nor consistent....but man I loves her. :)

    "That's what ise appreciates about you"
    --Letterkenny guy I can't remember name of.

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---