A team of researchers is building a computer model of a museum that designs its own exhibitions based on how visitors react to them. This matters because most information about artificial intelligence comes from tech companies with a commercial interest in how the technology is perceived. The public rarely gets a say in how AI is presented or used in cultural spaces. The project tackles three problems: the corporate control of AI narratives, the lack of public participation in museum design, and the "black box" nature of AI systems that visitors cannot understand or question. If successful, the model will become the blueprint for a physical Museum of AI Cultures at Loughborough University. The museum would exhibit artworks and artefacts produced by or with AI, while using AI itself to analyse audience behaviour and continuously improve its own displays. All of this would happen transparently, with human oversight. The project aims to create a cultural institution outside the South East of England, contributing to regional regeneration. The immediate output is a proof-of-concept simulation, not a finished museum.
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Context: This project will create a proof of concept for an innovative Museum of AI Cultures (MAIC). AI is typically integrated into heritage settings for the purpose of analysing user experience, enhancing collection management, extending curation, and exhibiting generative AI. The originality of this project lies in its participatory approach to modelling a new museum that (i) engages publics in conversations about AI; (ii) devises novel approaches to exhibiting cultural artefacts produced by or with AI; and (iii) integrates AI into its practical operation to produce an audience-responsive institution. Challenges: The project addresses three important challenges: Imposition of AI: Much information about AI is generated by companies with a vested interest in how technology is perceived and/or used by audiences. Countering this, the project will create the prototype of a responsive, ethical, and sustainable museum model that explores and exhibits the social, scientific, and aesthetic roles of AI in contemporary societies ('AI cultural heritage'); Audience participation. Through interactive workshops with publics, artists, and museum professionals, the project opens new dialogues with and about AI through collaborative making and story-telling. Workshop data from events with heritage-specialist Project Partners will shape the mission statement and design of the museum model and ensure that the proposed institution’s beneficiaries determine its ambitions, collections, and programming; Technological Transparency. The project addresses the 'black box' aspect of technological integration into museum settings by modelling an interactive testing ground for audiences' uses of, and engagement with, AI. This involves the transformation of complex computer science into meaningful museum narratives that privilege human experience in a new techno-heritage context. Aims and Objectives: Our interdisciplinary team will collaborate with museum specialists to model an adventurous Museum of AI Cultures that is transparent and responsive to user needs. This dynamic, computer-based representation will simulate human behaviour in a new heritage environment, accurately model real-world outcomes, and enable us to evaluate the composition, content, and curation of the proposed physical museum. The project's primary objectives are to: Objective 1: model an innovative new museum in which AI responsibly analyses audience experience for the purpose of continuously upgrading itself; Objective 2: collaborate with museum professionals to design audience-centred programmes that exhibit algorithmic artefacts and narratives about AI; Objective 3: co-create an inclusive technological heritage with museum specialists and publics that privileges novel audience engagements with AI; Objective 4: adopt a transparent approach to the application and mediation of technologies; Objective 5: develop strategies for using and exhibiting AI in ways that augment human expertise and remain subject to oversight by museum beneficiaries. Application and Benefits: This project offers solutions to urgent problems at the intersection of science and heritage by generating new and inclusive discourses about AI that will engage publics, artists, museum professionals, researchers, and policy makers. The museum model will serve as the prototype for a physical Museum of AI Cultures to be based at Loughborough University, ultimately contributing to the levelling up of UK regions by creating an innovative cultural institution outside the South East.
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