Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a powerful new tool that has been developed in recent years and is broadly understood as a system with the ability to process data in a way which resembles intelligent behaviour. It is deeply intertwined with culture, heritage, and sustainable development, both through how the tool is created and how it affects our lives.

On the first International Day of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, a webinar is organized on this important topic, with a global panel of experts. It aims to provide an opportunity for a wider audience to understand what AI is, how it may affect sustainable development and safeguarding of living heritage practices by communities, groups and individuals concerned, and what can be done to maximize benefits and mitigate harms for the bearers of intangible cultural heritage. It will present UNESCO’s approach to AI, explaining links between the Recommendation on the Ethics of AI (2021), and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, and inform audiences about new and ongoing initiatives in this regard.

Documents

Video recording: forthcoming
Presentations:

• What is AI and why does it matter for intangible cultural heritage? by Mr Bartosz Pieliński, Assistant Professor, Public Policy and AI Advisor for Intangible Cultural Heritage: UNESCO Chair on Public and Global Governance, University of Warsaw, Poland
• AI and ICH by Ms Cristina Martínez Pinto, Founder and CEO, PIT Policy Lab, Mexico
• Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for International Accessibility to Moroccan Linguistic Heritage by Ms Karima Bouziane, Associate Professor, Chouaib Doukkali University, Morocco
• AI is broken and we need ICH to fix it by Mr Przemysław Biecek, Professor, Warsaw University of Technology and University of Warsaw, Poland
• Intangible Cultural Heritage, AI and data governance - What does data governance for ICH looks like in the age of AI? by Ms Mathilde Pavis, Consultant on Artificial Intelligence, Culture Sector, UNESCO, France
• Generative AI, ICH and The 3Cs’ Rule: Consent, Credit, Compensation© by Ms Monica Boța-Moisin, Ashoka Fellow, Cultural Intellectual Property Lawyer, Founder of the Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative, Romania
• AI and Indigenous art and culture by Ms Patricia Adjei, Director, Standalone Legislation, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, Australia