I went to MuseumNext’s Museum AI Summit last week and here’s some takeaways.
The conference did a good job of making me reflect on AI in museums. There’s pervasive pressure by vendors/leadership to use “AI” in all operations. What does that mean? Why is it said like it’s inevitable? Nothing is inevitable. That is settler colonial logic.
I really liked how Saara Hacklin at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma said it:
Just yesterday, it was all about NFTs, blockchain and Metaverse, and now AI. Considering that museums boast having a long perspective, I think we should be able to resist the demand for immediacy. The reason technological development has been so fast that our collective understanding of broader implications of AI remains limited. We are still only beginning to grasp how AI affects people, communicates, cultural heritage, forms of knowledge and the environment.
As a field, I hope to see was more distinction/nuance of AI. And consideration of the costs before doing pilot projects.
AI is an umbrella term for a lot of different computing techniques, models, and outcomes that encompasses generative, machine-learning, automated processes with the help of computer programs. Yet, so much of what we hear in the sector is “AI” means “GenAI.”
As civic institutions, cultural heritage has an obligation (legal, ethical, professional code) to make the communities we represent/hold relations of/live within better. This inaccuracy alone of GenAI equating “AI” makes cultural heritage professionals complicit in GenAI’s total destruction of the planet and people’s lives.
AI is not necessarily the problem, it’s the rapid push of using GenAI technologies with little regulation or boundaries that go against global decolonial frameworks.
GenAI globally raises serious concerns of surveillance, job displacement, rising utility costs, energy consumption, and environmental/pollution. Just because we can use a technology, doesn’t mean it’s appropriate, legal, or realistic for operations.
- Are cultural heritage institutions the space for this technology?
- How does using GenAI impact data privacy laws and copyright protections?
- What do institutions do to not feed secret/sacred/private data about their collections into GenAI tools?