Hundreds of thousands of pages of oriental archives can "come to life" thanks to a Russian AI application. The development by scientists from the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences allows reading texts that previously took years to process. The system handles complex Arabic calligraphy and damaged documents, recognizing, proofreading, and translating them in a single stream. Experts call this a breakthrough in digital oriental studies.

The world of translation will never be the same

Large language models are no longer just a translation tool. They are creating a new work environment where the machine handles routine tasks, and humans define the meaning.

Unlike old CAT systems, which simply stored phrases, modern generative models understand context at a conceptual level. This allows for automated fact-checking, freeing the translator for creative work, analyzing metaphors, and cultural nuances.

Translation using generative AI can grasp the meaning of each word, not just in the context of a sentence, but of the entire text. This is its advantage. Large language models also possess rich expressive means. By taking on the main work of constructing the translation, they free the translator for creative work at the conceptual and cultural level.

The main misconception is to think that AI replaces the translator. In fact, it creates a new work environment, enhancing precisely those functions where humans are traditionally weakest. However, AI itself still lacks an understanding of pragmatics, intentionality (the author's intent), and lived experience. The machine does not understand ethics and existential subtext.

This is where humans come in. The greatest gain comes from combining the computational power of the algorithm with human creativity, reflection, and the ability to understand metaphors and cultural context.

The result of this symbiosis is a text whose quality is unattainable by either a human alone or a machine without human involvement.

AI sees the entire text at once – humans practically cannot

Large language models have revolutionized text recognition (OCR). And it's not that scientists have learned to read individual characters from an image more accurately. The breakthrough is that AI analyzes not individual characters, but the entire text at once.

If part of a manuscript is faded, the AI analyzes the entire sentence, then the entire text, and, based on the context, "reconstructs" the missing word with high accuracy.

Translators can gain "superpower"

The question arises: "How much will the new development speed up translation?" With good document quality, the translator spends time only on final proofreading, and with complex or damaged text, the work is accelerated by 2–3 times.

Previously, a person had to read the document in the original, retype it on a computer, then translate it, constantly checking against two texts. Now, 90% of this routine work is done by AI.

People will be able to ask questions to ancient sources and modern documents

Russia holds a huge treasure trove of ancient manuscripts. According to various estimates, there are more than 200,000 documents. Manuscripts are preserved and described, but there is a catastrophic shortage of specialists. Ancient texts wait decades for their turn to be studied.

The significance of this breakthrough extends far beyond academic science. The same algorithms that read medieval scrolls also work with modern documentation, scientists noted. According to experts, business and media will gain the ability to quickly process reports, archived scans, and conduct cross-language searches in mountains of data. Instead of spending weeks studying dozens of volumes of internal documents, a new employee can get an accurate answer in seconds by asking the system a question. The new AI is planned to be scaled to other Eastern languages.