Updates

Join us for the Digital Challenges Seminar Series: Exploring Ethics & Law in Digital Heritage!
The event takes place on February 11, 2025, from 13:00-17:00 at the House of Connections (Grote Markt 21, 9712 HR Groningen)

Digital Heritage Challenges

How can digital heritage balance accessibility and ethics? While digitisation expands access to knowledge, it also raises issues of ownership, cultural misappropriation, and technological disparities.

The session will explore legal frameworks, policy reforms, and community-driven approaches for fostering ethical and inclusive digital practices. How do we navigate ethical dilemmas when consultation isn’t feasible? What are the risks of reinforcing dominant narratives? Our very own Cindy Zalm (Wereldmuseum) will present on Colonial collections in a digital world in the afternoon.

More information about the event and registration can be done via the event webpage: https://www.rug.nl/research/research-let/sectorplan-website/heritage/digital-challenges-seminar-series

One of last year’s standout moments for the HAICu project was participating in HackaLOD 2024. HackaLOD is a creative hackathon competition focused on Linked Open Data (LOD) organized by NDE (Netwerk Digitaal Erfgoed). While the HAICu team didn’t walk away with a prize this time, the event was a significant milestone in showcasing the project’s interdisciplinary approach and commitment to co-creating AI-driven solutions for cultural heritage.

Building Toward a Multimodal Future

The HAICu team tackled a highly relevant and timely theme: the intertwined history of Islam in the Netherlands and its former colonies. Their innovative goal was to design a chatbot and interactive timeline that would allow users to explore this history from multiple perspectives. The project combined elements of Linked Open Data, artificial intelligence, and digital heritage, creating a rich use case that aligns perfectly with HAICu’s broader mission.

Although still in an early phase of development, the team’s work laid the groundwork for advancing AI solutions in cultural heritage. The prototype demonstrated how AI can integrate diverse datasets, from handwritten archives to museum objects, to make historical narratives more accessible and inclusive.

The Power of Collaboration

A key success factor in this project was the close collaboration between HAICu team members and the Nationaal Archief (National Archives). Special credit goes to Simon Kemper from the Nationaal Archief, who co-led the team and worked tirelessly to create a compelling use case. His expertise and dedication ensured that the project highlighted the importance of co-creation, one of HAICu’s core values.

In facing the hackathon challenge, the team gained valuable insights into why their work in HAICu’s Work Packages 2 (continual machine learning with humans in the loop) and 5 (Construction of polyvocal, multimodal narratives) is so crucial. Together they bridged the gap between AI research, digital humanities, and cultural heritage professionals. In doing so, the HAICu team took the first steps toward realizing a multimodal Delpher, a platform designed to integrate and explore cultural heritage data across different formats.

Tackling a Sensitive and Relevant Topic

The history of Islam in the Netherlands is a topic that carries significant societal relevance. In recent years, it has become a subject of intense political and public debate. The HAICu team approached this theme with care, aiming to add nuance and context to discussions through responsible historical analysis and contextualization.

For instance, the chatbot and timeline tools designed and evaluated during HackaLOD empower users to explore this history in an engaging, evidence-based manner. This approach demonstrates how AI can support society by deepening our understanding of complex topics, offering a counterbalance to polarized narratives.

While the topic itself isn’t at the forefront of the HAICu project, it remains a testament to the project’s ability to engage with meaningful and impactful issues.

Looking Ahead

HackaLOD 2024 was an early-stage but pivotal step in HAICu’s journey toward developing AI-driven tools for cultural heritage. The interdisciplinary collaboration and focus on co-creation exemplified during the hackathon underscore HAICu’s mission to connect AI, cultural heritage, and society in meaningful ways. As the HAICu project moves forward, events like HackaLOD highlight its potential to make cultural heritage more accessible, inclusive, and impactful for the broader public.

The Nationaal Archief continues to build on the tools developed during HackaLOD, with plans to integrate them into a larger project exploring the history of Islam in the Netherlands.

Read more about HackaLOD 2024 in our earlier update with a link to an NDE article, the hosting organization. 

Written by Merlijn Broersma

The recent HAICu workshop at the National Library (KB) marked its 10-month milestone. In celebrating the early achievements, recognizing the challenges ahead, and defining a shared vision for the future, the event showcased how HAICu is transforming the way we can use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to unlock the treasures of cultural heritage for society at large.

Tackling AI Challenges That Matter

Project leader Lambert Schomaker (University of Groningen) opened the workshop by acknowledging that companies like OpenAI and Google are revolutionizing the field. However, Schomaker emphasized, HAICu’s research questions continue to stand the test of time: organizing the vast and complex cultural heritage collections, teaching AI to work with limited data instead of relying on massive datasets, and contextualizing information to tell inclusive, multi-perspective stories that enrich societal discourse.

For example, Andreas Weber (University of Twente) reflected on the recent HackaLOD 2024 event. The HAICu team worked day and night on the challenge of linking diverse cultural heritage datasets into a single, interactive platform. This required linking handwritten archives, published texts, and museum objects — a technical challenge that also raised critical questions about how to deal with our cultural historical biases.

Pushing AI Beyond the Basics

Annemieke Romein (University of Twente) shared exciting progress on improving how AI interprets text. Instead of analyzing documents as simple blocks of text, her research group is training AI to understand “text landscapes”. This means recognizing handwritten notes in margins, tables, symbols, and other nuanced features that we humans process naturally. For instance, paragraph indentations may signal questions or ideas that need to be understood as part of the document’s meaning. Teaching AI these complexities opens the door to understanding numerous handwritten historical texts.

The workshop also celebrated HAICu’s new generation of researchers. PhD students, some on their very first day, presented their research proposals: from building explainable AI tools that “reason” like humanities scholars, to creating accessible cultural heritage tools that address biases. The variety of their work and background reflects the interdisciplinary and collaborative spirit of HAICu.

Collaboration: Humans and AI Together

The afternoon sessions emphasized co-creation — both in working across disciplines and in human co-creation with AI. Eric Postma (TiU) pointed out that while AI researchers tend to simplify cultural complexities, cultural heritage experts tend to overestimate AI’s capabilities. By bridging these worlds, HAICu ensures that tools are realistic, ethical, and valuable for society.

The Royal Library’s Deputy Director, Martijn Kleppe, showcased both the opportunities and challenges of digitization. With over 2 petabytes of cultural heritage data (that’s about 120 km of storage!), accessibility has become a key concern. The library is addressing this on two fronts: in pursuing transnational agreements about data management, and via tools such as “Curatorbot,” which answers questions about books in multiple languages, and “Retro,” an AI that analyzes books using the first and last pages.

Tania Duarte from We and AI highlighted the ethical dimensions of AI. She explained how AI reflects our societal biases because it gets most data from privileged groups. This challenge mirrors historical biases in cultural heritage, where certain voices were dominant. In order to prevent falling in the AI hype, Duarte stressed the need for precise definitions, responsible AI design, and imagery that avoids reinforcing misconceptions about AI’s capabilities.

From HAICu to Society: What’s Next?

As Enno Meijers (NDE, KB) explained, the ultimate goal of HAICu is to make cultural heritage more visible, accessible, and meaningful to society. By laying the foundation for smart, user-friendly AI systems, HAICu will empower people - from researchers to journalists and the general public - to explore and understand our shared cultural history.

In a fast-moving and unpredictable AI landscape, HAICu remains flexible and focused on what matters most: developing tools that not only advance technology but also enhance our understanding of culture, society, and the stories that shape us.

So, while the HAICu project just got started earlier this year, preliminary results show immense promise. By bringing together AI and digital humanities experts, cultural heritage institutions and direct input from society, HAICu is creating innovative solutions that have the potential to benefit us all for years to come.

Written by Merlijn Broersma

We are looking back at a succesfull workshop at the KB in The Hague! It was good to see many of you again, and to meet the various new members of the HAICu consortium! Also, in the afternoon programme, various people outside of the consortium joined us to learn about HAICu and see how they could get involved.

From start to finish, it was a varied programme that reflected the inter- and multidisciplinary nature of our project. While much of the research is still in its infancy, we were already presented with many interesting prospects. In addition, we heard many fruitful discussions taking place, saw valuable connections being made, and felt the widespread interest and support from our partners. Altogether, this makes us excited for the future of the HAICu project!

The workshop Transformative AI Meets Challenges from the Humanities took place on 2 December. On the Events webpage, you can find the original programme and more information about the speakers and presentations.

Eleven teams from four countries gathered at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam on the night of November 8-9. During the eighth HackaLOD, the premier hackathon for the heritage sector, they brought digital heritage to life in new and innovative ways — with surprising apps, games, and other applications that make heritage data accessible to everyone.

Team HAICu took on the challenge of creating a chatbot that allows for exploring the history of Islam in the Netherlands through an interactive timeline. Curious how that worked out?

Read the full article about HackaLOD 2024 on the NDE website.