The first and greatest Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is taking a journey from the past to the present through the “Digital Dante”, an avatar made with artificial intelligence capable of emulating the way of speaking of the time.
It was implemented by the company QuestIT with the collaboration of the University of Siena.
The objective is to offer a digital companion for students and aficionados, as the avatar is capable of accurately answering questions about the Divine Comedy and the writer's life. He even acts as a virtual guide for tourists in museums.
“To accomplish the feat, we started by analyzing the death mask of the supreme poet, faithfully recreating it. And then we dress the avatar in a way that exactly mirrors the classic iconography associated with Dante”, says Ernesto Di Iorio, CEO of QuestIT.
“Thanks to this technology, structured in collaboration with the University of Siena, both adults and children can enjoy an unforgettable experience and, at the same time, dispel doubts and cultural perplexities of all kinds,” he added.
The avatar was enriched with a “Large Language Model”, that is, an advanced AI technology focused on understanding and analyzing texts, like the one that underlies ChatGPT.
Thus, “Digital Dante” is able to understand questions and respond accordingly, extrapolating and reprocessing data.
“According to the latest report from the Politecnico di Milano, only 3% of Italian museums and theatres use avatars or virtual assistants. We need a change of pace and we are convinced that Dante will be just the first in a long series of innovations capable of propelling Italy into a new era,” concluded Di Iorio. (HANDLE)
