Cover AI and technology are playing an increasingly vital role in conservation, safeguarding cultural and artistic heritage (Photo: Igor Shalyminov / Unsplash).
AI and technology are playing an increasingly vital role in conservation, safeguarding cultural and artistic heritage (Photo: Igor Shalyminov / Unsplash).
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While the decline of cultural and artistic heritage may seem inevitable, the thoughtful application of AI holds the potential to transform how we approach conservation.
The swift progress of artificial intelligence has raised multiple concerns, particularly around intellectual property and employment. Yet, when carefully harnessed, AI offers powerful tools for protecting and restoring heritage that has suffered the ravages of time.
As the world evolves at an ever-accelerating pace, traditional values and historic treasures risk slipping into obscurity. Climate change and human activity continue to exert pressure on fragile relics of the past. In this context, AI may well prove to be an indispensable ally in preserving artefacts and documents of historical importance.
Beyond conservation, AI opens up new possibilities for sustainable, immersive experiences—benefiting both tourists and local communities. That said, applying AI to heritage conservation is not without its challenges. It demands careful consideration and a nuanced approach in order to achieve meaningful and respectful results.
Using AI to digitise heritage is an inevitable trend
Across developed nations, technology is being embraced as a valuable means of digitising ancient heritage in varied and innovative ways. Take, for instance, Berlin’s Natural History Museum, which has employed the AI tool Transkribus to digitise over 250,000 insect specimen identification tags—creating a rich repository of biological data for researchers and the wider public.
In Canada, the Musée Hospitalières de la Hôtel-Dieu Montréal has also adopted Transkribus to revitalise its permanent collections and curate new, temporary exhibitions. With its keyword search function, the museum is now able to catalogue and archive historical documents in a more structured and accessible manner.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the open-source project Time Machine has captured global attention. It uses cutting-edge technology to digitise extensive museum archives and analyse the data to reconstruct two millennia of European history. Backed by €1 million in funding from the European Union in 2019, the project aims to make the continent’s vast cultural and historical legacy more accessible to all.
Frédéric Kaplan, President of the Time Machine project, notes that documents dating back over 2,000 years are often lost to history due to the lack of preservation tools. Digitisation, he says, is key to conservation, maintaining the connection between a country or region’s present and its past.
In Vietnam, heritage digitisation efforts have been gathering momentum in recent years. The ancient city of Hue is pioneering various technologies to enhance how visitors experience its historic landmarks. From the Imperial City to the tomb of King Minh Mang, virtual reality brings these cultural sites vividly to life. Many antiquities are now fitted with NFC chips and digitally tagged to allow for interactive exploration via smartphone.
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Sen Heritage, a non-profit research collective made up of scholars, architects and community members passionate about conservation of national heritage, made headlines in 2020 by recreating the architecture of Dien Huu Pagoda—also known as the One Pillar Pagoda of the Ly Dynasty—using virtual reality. The following year, in April 2021, the group unveiled simulations of the Ly Dynasty’s Lamp Platform and the Tu Di throne of the infant Sakyamuni.
Above The Dien Huu—One Pillar Pagoda of the Ly Dynasty, recreated by the Sen Heritage research group using virtual reality technology. (Photo: Sen Heritage).
The Dien Huu—One Pillar Pagoda of the Ly Dynasty, recreated by the Sen Heritage research group using virtual reality technology. (Photo: Sen Heritage).
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AI’s role extends beyond preserving cultural and artistic heritage; it also offers hope for languages on the brink of extinction. With globalisation and the rise of digital platforms, a handful of languages have flourished, while approximately 600 others have vanished over the past century.
Encouragingly, several organisations worldwide are taking meaningful steps to safeguard and document these disappearing tongues. In early 2024, Stanford University introduced the Stanford Initiative on Language Inclusion and Conservation in Old and New Media, an ambitious project aimed at encoding endangered languages for use in AI-based applications. That same year, Masakhane—a natural language processing collective dedicated to African languages—launched IrokoBench, a new benchmark for evaluating AI’s performance across 16 marginalised African languages.
The challenges of using AI to preserve ancient cultural values
Although the benefits of AI—and technology more broadly—are clear, the path to effective heritage preservation remains complex.
Foremost among the hurdles is cost. For example, digitising heritage in the ancient capital of Hue has required investments running into the billions of VND. Such costs remain out of reach for many local communities and non-profit groups.
Then there’s the question of copyright. The protection of digitised cultural assets must be handled with care. Without appropriate oversight, there’s a risk that valuable heritage data could be exploited or commercialised without permission. This makes monitoring the digitisation process all the more important.
Above “O Thiet Yeu” is a virtual reality exhibition exploring Vietnamese history and culture, first unveiled in 2021, and brought to life by a group of young artists.
“O Thiet Yeu” is a virtual reality exhibition exploring Vietnamese history and culture, first unveiled in 2021, and brought to life by a group of young artists.
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Another challenge lies in sourcing the right talent. In Vietnam, digital heritage preservation remains an emerging discipline. As such, museums, local authorities and cultural institutions may need to invest significantly in training specialised personnel.
According to Dr Pham Viet Long, former Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Institute for Cultural and Development Studies, building a robust digital heritage database requires careful, sustained investment. It’s a task that calls for collaboration between cultural specialists, historians and AI engineers to design models capable of representing heritage authentically. Legal frameworks—particularly those concerning copyright and ethical use of AI—will also be essential in guiding this process.
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Still, not every cultural expression can be neatly captured by artificial intelligence. Ancient, undocumented languages pose a particular challenge. While AI may assist in their documentation or partial reconstruction, fully restoring what has been lost is often beyond current capabilities.
Even so, despite its obstacles, the integration of technology into heritage preservation marks an important shift. It’s a necessary evolution—one that can help carry the essence of a nation’s cultural identity into the future.
