AI and Heritage: A Discussion on Rethinking Heritage in a Digital World

Abstract

It is widely understood that cultural heritage represents a dynamic phenomenon: it is created in the present by us ascribing value to material or intangible inheritance from the past, we know that different past societies cherished such remains much like us, and what constitutes it changes over time. And yet, up until the present, it was implied that these things that we inherited and value have been made by humans. With the rise of generative AI programs, that is no longer a given. We already have programs capable of producing works that get a lot of praise and even win art prizes, like the case of Théâtre D'opéra Spatial, and this is just the beginning of the current AI revolution. These developments with AI are already challenging our established views, legal frameworks, regulatory systems, and many other things in our society. Because of that, this article aims to provide a brief overview of how our notion of what constitutes cultural heritage changes and explore why these developments are different from previous inventions and why they pose a challenge to our established views on cultural heritage, in the hope of opening up a discussion on what constitutes heritage in an increasingly digital world.