AI and the Future of Cultural Heritage

Dear Colleagues,

The aim of the third Una Quantum inc conference is to interconnect international experiences centered on the artificial intelligence in the realm of cultural heritage. As the Guest Editors and organizers of the conference, we are are seeking a humanistic perspective of the transformation occourring as a result of the latest introduction of AI assistants during the daily work, study and cultural production of heritage. We are focused on recognizing how deep changes in the field of humanities are and expectances in the future. From the United States to Europe, action needs to be taken to reimagine the power relationschips in several cultural workspaces and academies. There is a need to meet, talk about the theme and accelerate the debate upon maintaining freedom of thought and expression, preserving the authors and image rights, privacy and environment. The western goverments and the major democracies have begun outlining the bounderies between artificial and human intelligence. The goal is to preserve the latter from astonishing tight controls by private companies, criminal organizations and third-world non-democratic countries. Having consciousness about these issues is the key to drive this incredibly inspiring moment of the human history. It is now becoming evident how broad and easy it is to build one's own AI assistant for one's own field of research, making the results of heritage disciplines more scientific and faster. AI research assistants are easing the analysis of complexities, providing fast answears from very large ammounts of data and complex systems. The real result is that the artificial intelligence developed with secure and robust laws for human-centered purposes is bringing back the role of researchers to the centre in society, emphasizing their capabilities in generating new knowledge, consciousness, culture and solutions for an evolving complex human world.

Exploring the Intersection of AI and Cultural Heritage

In the dynamic intersection of AI and cultural heritage, this comprehensive exploration scrutinizes multiple facets of this evolving field. This investigation encompasses AI's development and application in cultural heritage, ethical considerations, environmental sustainability, system robustness, human-centered approaches and copyright issues, highlighting the multifaceted dimensions of this crucial intersection.

How can Al improve cultural heritage professions? Which are the potential advantages, disadvantages and future opportunities of Al in cultural heritage?

Possible examples of application include 3D reconstruction, remote sensing, image recognition and classification, text markup and understanding, historical map digitization, point cloud editing, virtual restorations, etc.

Contributions may cover, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• AI development and application in cultural heritage;
• Cultural heritage AI and ethics;
• Cultural heritage AI and environmental Impact*;
• Cultural heritage AI robustness, practicality and security;
• Cultural heritage AI and human-centered approaches;
• Cultural heritage AI and Explainability of process;
• AI cultural heritage and copyright.

* Is it possible and how can we achieve a zero-emission AI process (e.g., hosting the server and website at a zero-emission company that can offer servers powered solely by renewable energy and other green solutions)?

Spadaro, Alessandro
Organizer

Dr. Paolo Rosati
Dr. Marco Raoul Marini
Dr. Augusto Palombini
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Heritage is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• artificial intelligence
• cultural heritage
• ethics
• environmental sustainability
• human-centered approaches