Artificial intelligence in the context of cultural heritage and museums

European Parliament - EPRS Policy podcasts

European Parliament Webmaster

Government & Organizations, Non-profit

4.8 • 13 Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2023

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Artificial intelligence (AI) has slowly but surely made its way (also) in the world of cultural heritage and museums. The results are both promising and surprising: reconstructing a piece of art, completing an unfinished composition of a great musician, identifying the author of an ancient text, or providing architectural details for a potential reconstruction of the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral would have seemed like science fiction just a few years ago. The EU has a rich cultural heritage, and its numerous top museums and works of art are a precious resource for its cultural and creative industry. Yet, it depends on the United States for its online cultural platforms and on Asia for its equipment.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcasts.
0:05.1	In this podcast, we'll look at what artificial intelligence can do
0:08.5	and is already doing to preserve and promote European cultural heritage and museums.
0:14.6	And consider the challenges and the opportunities that it brings with it.
0:18.8	Stay with us.
0:23.6	Thank you. that it brings with it. Stay with us. When Beethoven died in 1827, he left 40 sketches for an unfinished 10th symphony.
0:31.6	But thanks to the development of digital technologies and machine learning techniques,
0:36.6	what the master could not finish,
0:38.5	AI did.
0:42.3	We created an artificial intelligence that could compose in the style of Ludwig van Beethoven.
0:49.0	Our idea was not to create an AI that could replace human composers, but rather a set of tools that human
0:59.3	experts can use to create a reconstruction of what a 10th symphony of Beethoven could have looked
1:07.1	like.
1:08.1	This was Dr. Matias Roder, director of the Beethoven 10 AI project.
1:13.6	But AI has also helped reconstruct the lost edges of Rembrandt's famous painting, The Nightwatch,
1:19.6	identified L'OPE de Vega as the writer of a theatre play whose author remained unknown,
1:24.6	and analyzed painstakingly detailed 3D digital models of the Notre Dame
1:30.3	Cathedral in Paris to help restore the full splendor of the building destroyed by the fire.
1:36.3	Yes, what seemed like science fiction just a few years ago is now a reality. But applying AI in
1:43.5	the public cultural domain requires a high degree of human
1:46.7	involvement and investment in many areas. AI needs to be fed with high quality data to be trained
1:52.6	to perform its tasks. This data also needs to be interoperable and properly described with metadata.
	...

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