Digital technology has become increasingly prevalent across various fields, and historic preservation is no exception. Artificial intelligence has emerged as a promising technology that offers new and innovative approaches to protect and maintain our cultural heritage.
With artificial intelligence, stewards can improve the accessibility, searchability, and usefulness of historical artifacts and sites, opening them up to more researchers, scholars, and the public.
What Is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that deals with the development of computer systems that can perform tasks that historically only a human could do, such as problem-solving, decision-making, and reasoning.
What else can AI do?
- Learn from vast amounts of information
- Identify patterns
- Make predictions and recommendations, simulating intelligence based on data
- Perform specific tasks based on sample data
- Adapt to new situations
- Automate complex processes
- Improve efficiency
What Is Historic Preservation?
Historic preservation refers to the practice of protecting and maintaining buildings, objects, landscapes, and other artifacts that have cultural or historical significance. This practice aims to preserve these resources for future generations and ensure that they continue to serve as valuable educational, cultural, and economic assets.
Historic preservation involves various activities like documentation, conservation, restoration, rehabilitation, and adaptive reuse, all guided by principles of authenticity, sustainability, and community engagement.
Historic preservation is a crucial aspect of safeguarding and preserving our collected cultural heritage. Because of this, the field and its standards must evolve and adapt alongside the new technological developments and work towards incorporating them.
How Is AI Used in Historic Preservation?
Restoration
Restoration is the process of returning a building, object, or document to its former or original condition. With the help of AI-driven systems, experts can thoroughly scan and analyze historical documents, paintings, and sculptures. This enables experts to identify any deterioration, damage, or the need for restoration. Additionally, these systems can assist in the digital reconstruction of damaged artifacts, allowing us to visualize them in their original form.
Conservation
Conservation refers to the careful maintenance and upkeep of an object to prevent it from damage or destruction. The use of AI-powered sensors has proven to be incredibly useful in maintaining the environmental conditions of a collection at museums and historical sites. These sensors can monitor temperature, humidity, and light levels, identifying when any of these conditions fall outside of the optimal range to notify the relevant personnel.
Augmented Historical Research
One of the main benefits of using AI in historic preservation is the ability to process and analyze large amounts of data quickly and accurately. This can be particularly useful when it comes to digitizing collections of historic documents, photographs, and other materials that might be difficult to manage using traditional methods. By using AI-powered algorithms to sort and categorize this data, experts can gain new insights into historical events, architecture, and cultural practices that might otherwise be lost.
One of the most exciting recent examples is that of the Vesuvius Challenge, in which students and scholars utilized AI to fill in the gaps of an ancient scroll. The scroll itself was imaged using CT scans, digitally “unrolled” and restored from context that survived. Then, the Challenge encouraged teams to use AI to unlock even more of the text – reading between the literal words and lines to generate more complete scrolls; the contents of which have not been able to be read by humans since the days of antiquity.
Cataloging and Transcribing
Similarly, any archivist knows that cataloging a vast collection often takes time that they just don’t have. Adding descriptive metadata, transcribing handwritten documents and audio files… these too often land on the “would be nice” list for digital archives.
The truth is that these features have the potential to greatly enhance the archive experience, and AI-powered tools are starting to make progress. With human supervision, AI can add metadata, descriptions, and transcriptions to material in a digital collection.
Virtual Reality (VR)
By combining AI data analysis and VR technology, it has become possible to accurately reconstruct historical cities and monuments with unprecedented precision and detail.
These reconstructions not only promote cultural tourism and education but also help to preserve our collective cultural heritage for future generations. VR projects such as Lithodomos, which allows users to “experience” ancient Rome also emphasize the need for accuracy in these applications, as a key facet of Historical Preservation is presenting history as it was, rather than a manufactured amalgamation of design.
The impact of standing in ancient ruins or among breathtaking artifacts in their original state can spur an interest in history that can last a lifetime—and can get investor buy-in for new initiatives or upgrades.
Impact of AI
The integration of artificial intelligence is a valuable tool in historic preservation, especially as technology continues to advance rapidly. By utilizing AI-powered systems, we can protect and maintain our cultural heritage in innovative ways that were previously impossible.
AI is transforming how we approach historic preservation, from restoration and conservation to augmented historical research and virtual reality, making it more accessible, sustainable, and engaging than ever before. With continued research and development, we can look forward to even more exciting applications of AI in this field in the years to come.
Ready to jump into the digital age? Contact Anderson Archival and start your digitization process today!
