Massimo Gonzato
Kuzushiji recognition with AI
Dr. Tarin Clanuwat – a young scholar from Thailand who specialized in Japanese medieval literature – has developed an AI-based character recognition system, which magically transcribes pre-modern Japanese characters into modern Japanese.
It is said that only a few thousand people (about 0.01% of the Japanese population) can read Kuzushiji fluently. In order to make historical materials written in Kuzushiji more accessible to the general public, we need to transcribe the abundant amount of documents which would take very long time because of limited human resource. The question is: is it possible to use AI (artificial intelligence) to help transcribe the materials?
The ROIS-DS Center for Open Data in the Humanities (CODH) has developed “KuroNet” Kuzushiji recognition system which can automatically find characters and transcribe text from image using AI object detection technology. KuroNet is trained on the “Kuzushiji dataset” created by the National Institute of Japanese Literature and is skilled at recognizing Kuzushiji characters especially in Edo period woodblock printed books.
CODH is also developing the smartphone app "miwo" so that anyone can use KuroNet easily. The name “miwo” comes from the 14th chapter of The Tale of Genji “miwotsukushi”, referring to waterway signs. Just as the miwotsukushi is a guide for boats in the sea, we aim to make our "miwo" app as a guide for traveling the ocean of historical documents.
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