AI for Cultural Heritage: what of copyright?

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) is revolutionising our relationship with cultural heritage.

Speaker:Dr Paula Westenberger, Brunel University London

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) is revolutionising our relationship with cultural heritage, enhancing access to, engagement with and preservation of collections and heritage sites. AI is also being used as a valuable research tool in the context of heritage collections. However, copyright law and practices may become an obstacle to such important AI deployments in the heritage sector. As AI may use copyright-protected materials in the process of algorithm training, there are concerns from creators on how their works may be misappropriated or misused. This talk will therefore address the current challenges in achieving an appropriate balance between allowing important AI uses in the heritage sector while preserving legitimate interests of creators.

Valsamis Ntouskos received the engineering diploma from the School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Athens, Greece, in 2006, the B.Sc. degree in electronics engineering in 2010, the M.S.E. degree in artificial intelligence and robotics in 2012, and the Ph.D. degree in computer engineering with honors in 2016 from the Sapienza University of Rome, Sapienza, Italy, working on “Inverse Problems Theory in Shape and Action Modeling.”From 2017 to 2020, he was Researcher with the Department of Computer, Control, and Management Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome. As of 2020, he is a Research Fellow with the Remote Sensing Lab, NTUA. He has several publications in top-tier international conferences and journals in the fields of machine learning and computer vision. His teaching and research interests include computer vision, remote sensing, machine learning and robotics, focusing on the design and development of autonomous perception and nonconventional imaging systems. Dr. Ntouskos serves as a Program Committee Member and reviewer for top rank international conferences and journals of his field. He has participated in several EU funded Research and Innovation projects on topics related to robotics and ICT.

Moderator: Dr Asieh Hosseini (Senior Lecturer in Strategy & Business Economy, Brunel University London)