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1. Vatican, Microsoft Create AI-Generated St. Peter's Basilica to Allow Virtual
Visits, Log Damage
2. World News
3. News
4. Home
VATICAN, MICROSOFT CREATE AI-GENERATED ST. PETER'S BASILICA TO ALLOW VIRTUAL
VISITS, LOG DAMAGE
A digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica has been created using artificial
intelligence to explore one of the world’s most important monument’s
By Associated Press
|
Nov. 11, 2024
By Associated Press
|
Nov. 11, 2024, at 8:50 a.m.
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Vatican, Microsoft Create AI-Generated St. Peter's Basilica to Allow Virtual
Visits, Log Damage
More
Gregorio Borgia
A view of St. Peter's basilica during the preview to the press of the exhibition
'Petros eni', which is part of the project "St. Peter's Basilica: AI-Enhanced
Experience" at the Vatican, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican and Microsoft on Monday unveiled a digital twin
of St. Peter’s Basilica that uses artificial intelligence to explore one of the
world’s most important monument’s while helping the Holy See manage visitor
flows and identify conservation problems.
Using 400,000 high-resolution digital photographs, taken with drones, cameras
and lasers over four weeks when no one was in the basilica, the digital replica
is going online alongside two new on-site exhibits to provide visitors -- real
and virtual -- with an interactive experience.
“It is literally one of the most technologically advanced and sophisticated
projects of its kind that has ever been pursued,” Microsoft's president Brad
Smith told a Vatican press conference.
The project has been launched ahead of the Vatican's 2025 Jubilee, a holy year
in which more than 30 million pilgrims are expected to pass through the
basilica’s Holy Door, on top of the 50,000 who visit on a normal day.
“Everyone, really everyone should feel welcome in this great house,” Pope
Francis told Smith and members of the project's development teams at an audience
Monday.
The digital platform allows visitors to reserve entry times to the basilica, a
novelty for one of the world’s most visited monuments that regularly has an
hours-long line of tourists waiting to get in.
But the heart of the project is the creation of a digital twin of St. Peter’s
Basilica through advanced photogrammetry and artificial intelligence that allows
anyone to “visit” the church and learn about its history.
The ultra-precise 3D replica, developed in collaboration with digital
preservation company Iconem, incorporates 22 petabytes of data — enough to fill
five million DVDs — Smith said.
The images have already identified structural damage and signs of deterioration,
such as missing mosaic pieces, cracks and fissures invisible to the naked eye,
with a speed and precision far beyond human capabilities.
Francis has called for the ethical use of AI and used his annual World Message
of Peace this year to urge an international treaty to regulate it, arguing that
technology lacking human values of compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness
were too great.
On Monday, he thanked the Microsoft team and basilica workers responsible for
the project and marveled at how modern technology was helping spread an ancient
faith and preserve a piece of world patrimony, which celebrates the 400th
anniversary of its consecration in 2026.
“This house of prayer for all peoples has been entrusted to us by those who have
preceded us in faith and apostolic ministry,” he told Smith and the delegation.
“Therefore, it is a gift and a task to care for it, in both a spiritual and
material sense, even through the latest technologies.”
Smith declined to give a price tag for Microsoft’s investment in the project,
saying only it was “substantial” and was borne of Francis’ initiative in 2018 to
bring tech companies together to promote ethnically minded AI.
He said Microsoft had done similar AI projects at Mont Saint-Michel in France
and Ancient Olympia, in Greece.
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s
collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.
The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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