On the afternoon 22 October 2024, the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Lisbon hosted its first public event, a session on Culture and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Bringing together digital experts, academics, artists and students, the thought-provoking session featured a powerful message from the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres. The Secretary General of Europa Nostra and Project Leader of the European Heritage Hub, Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović, put a spotlight on the Hub Call to Action ‘Championing a Responsible Digital Transition for and with Cultural Heritage’, released just a few hours before the event. The session, organised by Centro Nacional de Cultura, gathered some 400 attendees, both in person and online.
The event opened with remarks from Maria Calado, President of the Centro Nacional de Cultura, and the Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins, Trustee of the Gulbenkian Foundation, both partners of the EU-funded European Heritage Hub pilot project.
The tone for the event was set in a powerful written message from the Secretary General of the United Nations. In the digital age, Artificial Intelligence is redefining the way we create, consume and give life to culture. On the one hand, it democratises access to culture, and goes beyond the limits of artistic creation. It can also help to preserve and safeguard our common cultural heritage, for instance, by digitalising and making accessible heritage treasures that are sometimes forgotten. On the one hand, AI raises legal and moral issues on the boundaries between human creativity and artificial creation.
In his message, Secretary General of United Nations, António Guterres, stated: “We must act, without any hesitation, to ensure an ethical AI, respecting cultural diversity and copyrights, and to avoid that cultural technologies are controlled by a handful of dominant actors. Last month, the United Nations adopted the Global Digital Compact – the first worldwide agreement on digital cooperation and AI governance. It is now up to all the States to implement it. Together we will work to ensure that AI serves creativity, diversity and cultural heritage.”
The panel discussion explored the intersection of Culture and Artificial Intelligence, highlighting the importance of the responsible use of AI in the sector. Panellists included Alexandre Quintanilha, Biophysics Researcher, Carlos Fiolhais, Professor of Physics at the University of Coimbra, William Hasselberger, Director of the Digital Ethics Laboratory at the Catholic University of Portugal, and Rudolfo Quintas, Visual Artist. José Tolentino Mendonça, Poet and Prefect of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, winner of the Helena Vaz da Silva European Award for Raising Public Awareness on Cultural Heritage 2020, addressed the audience via a video message. After their interventions, the panellists answered questions posed by a group of Culture Studies PhD students from the Lisbon Consortium of the Catholic University of Portugal.
In her address, the Secretary General of Europa Nostra and Project Leader of the European Heritage Hub, Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović, threw a spotlight on the newly released Hub Call to Action ‘Championing a Responsible Digital Transition for and with Cultural Heritage’. The Call is the main outcome of the second Hub Forum held in Bucharest and online on 7 October 2024, during the European Cultural Heritage Summit 2024.
Incorporating diverse perspectives from leading (digital) heritage experts, policymakers at all levels, and representatives from civil society from all across Europe, the Hub Call to Action outlines five key priorities for cultural heritage in the context of digital transformation, which hold particular significance with the newly elected EU institutions.
“We now have to pass the key messages of this Call to Action to the new leadership of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council. We all have to work together to safeguard not only our tangible heritage but also our intangible heritage, our values, our democracy, and our humanity. We need a good blend of artificial and ancestral intelligence at the service of public good,” concluded Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović.
