Museums and AI: Imagining the AI We Want for Museums

This is a CDCS Digital Cultural Heritage research cluster event.

Museums are, by their very nature, data centric institutions. They are collectors and creators of a diverse range of data, be that the bone density of a dinosaur, the market value of an artwork, the most viewed collection item on their website, or how long visitors spend in a particular gallery. AI technologies bring new opportunities and challenges to the collection and analysis of this data, and as such, museums need to create a new model for data management which is socially focused and ethically robust. This is indeed a challenge, and a significant one at that, but museums as an institution offer a unique platform for critical enquiry, and the development of data literacy skills within wider society.

This talk will examine these challenges and possible opportunities through a series of case studies that have been developed through the Museums and AI Network.

Dr Oonagh Murphy is Lecturer in Arts Management at Goldsmiths, University of London / the Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship . Oonagh is also the co-founder of the Museums and AI Network.