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Heritage
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The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Cultural Heritage Studies—Threats and...
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The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Cultural Heritage Studies—Threats and Opportunities

A special issue of Heritage (ISSN 2571-9408).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 1628

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Dirk Spennemann

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute for Land Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, P.O. Box 789, Albury, NSW 2640, Australia
Interests: micronesian history and heritage; heritage conservation; heritage management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Peter J. Cobb

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Humanities, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Interests: Mediterranean classical and near Eastern Archaeology; late Bronze and Iron Ages of the Eastern Mediterranean

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to become the greatest cross-sectorial disruptor since the development of the internet in the mid-1990s. Developments are occurring on a wide front, from models developed and trained to automatically classify text from fragments and provide solutions for interpretation to models that can classify coins or pottery fragments and aid in the reconstruction of pottery vessels from fragments. In combination with CT scans, AI models have been used to extract text from carbonised scrolls that were too fragile to be unrolled. Generative AI language models such as ChatGPT have become a common tool to summarise text and provide ready answers to questions that can be asked in a person’s normal language pattern.

This Special Issue aims to bring together a range of contributions:

  • Papers that report on or evaluate current uses of Artificial Intelligence in cultural heritage studies;
  • Proof-of-concept papers that report on pilot studies which explore innovative uses of AI;
  • Conceptual papers that explore potential emerging uses and applications;
  • Papers that address social concerns related to the use and potential abuse of generative AI systems in heritage studies.

Welcome are all contributions that address a wide range of aspects of the actual or potential use of Artificial Intelligence in the field of cultural heritage studies, such as

The use of neural networks and AI in the classification and interpretation of

  • Artefacts, objects and other material culture;
  • Building components;
  • Damaged buildings;
  • Archaeological sites (for ex interfacing with remote sensing);
  • Handwriting analysis for archival studies.

The use of neural networks and AI in the restoration and reconstruction of

  • Artefacts and objects;
  • Paintings and mosaics;
  • Incomplete texts and inscriptions;
  • Buildings ruins;
  • Heritage structures damaged by natural disasters (e.g., fire).

The use of generative AI chatbots in

  • Museum studies;
  • Public archaeology;
  • Heritage education;
  • Professional development.

The potential dangers of AI

  • Deskilling of professionals (loss of critical thinking skills);
  • Deep fakes of images and audio recordings;
  • Falsification of manuscripts;
  • Falsified artefacts;
  • Creation of false narratives and alternative histories.

Dr. Dirk Spennemann
Dr. Peter J. Cobb
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.

Keywords

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • cultural heritage
  • neural networks

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 311 KiB  
Article
Will Artificial Intelligence Affect How Cultural Heritage Will Be Managed in the Future? Responses Generated by Four genAI Models
by Dirk H. R. Spennemann
Heritage 2024, 7(3), 1453-1471; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage7030070 - 11 Mar 2024
Viewed by 1334
Abstract
Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) language models have become firmly embedded in public consciousness. Their abilities to extract and summarise information from a wide range of sources in their training data have attracted the attention of many scholars. This paper examines how four genAI [...] Read more.
Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) language models have become firmly embedded in public consciousness. Their abilities to extract and summarise information from a wide range of sources in their training data have attracted the attention of many scholars. This paper examines how four genAI large language models (ChatGPT, GPT4, DeepAI, and Google Bard) responded to prompts, asking (i) whether artificial intelligence would affect how cultural heritage will be managed in the future (with examples requested) and (ii) what dangers might emerge when relying heavily on genAI to guide cultural heritage professionals in their actions. The genAI systems provided a range of examples, commonly drawing on and extending the status quo. Without a doubt, AI tools will revolutionise the execution of repetitive and mundane tasks, such as the classification of some classes of artifacts, or allow for the predictive modelling of the decay of objects. Important examples were used to assess the purported power of genAI tools to extract, aggregate, and synthesize large volumes of data from multiple sources, as well as their ability to recognise patterns and connections that people may miss. An inherent risk in the ‘results’ presented by genAI systems is that the presented connections are ‘artifacts’ of the system rather than being genuine. Since present genAI tools are unable to purposively generate creative or innovative thoughts, it is left to the reader to determine whether any text that is provided by genAI that is out of the ordinary is meaningful or nonsensical. Additional risks identified by the genAI systems were that some cultural heritage professionals might use AI systems without the required level of AI literacy and that overreliance on genAI systems might lead to a deskilling of general heritage practitioners. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Cultural Heritage Studies—Threats and Opportunities)
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