FAQ
What is this?
A way to actually talk to the ancient world. Ask Odysseus why he lies. Ask a Cyclops how dinner is going. Ask Socrates anything and watch him refuse to answer straight. The replies come from real ancient texts and scholarship, with the receipts shown.
Is the AI just making stuff up?
No. Every answer is pulled from a corpus of over 759,000 passages from real ancient sources, and it shows you where it got each one. If it cannot cite it, it does not say it.
Who the hell are you?
I am Al Tarbet. PhD classicist, on food stamps, in Salem, Oregon. I wrote a Michigan dissertation on Egyptian fart jokes, then got fired from teaching for basically telling the joke out loud. Before any of that I spent seven years as a lumber-yard janitor printing the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy off the company printer to read on break, because the guys at the yard wanted to know why Pythagoras was scared of beans. Turns out everybody does.
Digital Ancients is what I did with all of it. I built a 759,000-passage corpus of real ancient sources because I got tired of AI making up history, and I turned the ancient dead into something you can actually argue with. The humanities are not dying. They are escaping the building. I took the good stuff with me when I left. Here it is, playable.
Is it finished?
No, and I am not going to pretend it is. What you are seeing is a Live Alpha: a teaser and a working taste. You are watching the thing get built in public, on purpose. Rough edges are the point, not the accident.
What does it cost?
Free to poke at right now. A Patreon is opening for people who want to fund the build and get in early.
Can I use it for teaching or research?
Yes. That is a big part of why it exists.
How do I find out when the big stuff drops?
Join the newsletter. When the Kickstarter goes live, newsletter people hear first.
Heads up: this is early
What you are seeing is a Live Alpha: a teaser and a working demo, not the finished product. Here is the honest plan, no spin.
- Kickstarter: gearing up now. It funds the real build. Join the newsletter and you will be first to know the second it goes live.
- Patreon: open now, for early backers who want to come along from the start.
- Newsletter: drop your email and you get the Kickstarter and Patreon news before anyone else.
If something is broken, it is because you are seeing it built in the open. That is the whole idea.
Want in before the doors open?
The Patreon is where this thing gets built in daylight. Early backers see the work as it happens and get first access when the full version ships. No polished promises, just the build, in public, with you in the room for it.
