The government is set to launch a mission to use artificial intelligence-based handwritten text recognition (AI-HTR) to decipher the knowledge preserved in ancient manuscripts.
Several experts are sceptical of the success of the project, given the limitations of technology.
The culture ministry is organising a three-day conference on “Reclaiming India’s Knowledge Legacy through Manuscript Heritage” from Thursday to discuss and chalk out plans for this project. The conference is part of the activities being conducted under the Gyan Bharatam Mission (GBM), which seeks to preserve the traditional knowledge in a digitised format for easy use by scholars and the public.
According to a document released on Wednesday by the Press Information Bureau (PIB), ₹482.85 crore has been allocated for the GBM for 2024-31. The conference, to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will witness the participation of 95 academics, 22 administrators, 112 research scholars, 230 students and over 400 representatives from diverse fields.
“With over 10 million manuscripts spanning subjects from philosophy and medicine to governance and the arts, the challenge aims to harness AI to make this legacy more accessible and meaningful for the world,” the PIB document stated.
Rajeev Kumar, a retired professor of computer science at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said reading ancient handwritten text by using technology was not 100 per cent accurate.
“The HTR is an old tool to decipher ancient texts. It can give 80-90 per cent
accuracy in reading and comprehending the texts. The handwritten text always has this issue because of the style of the handwriting and the quality of the material on which it is written,” Kumar said.