Co-Opting AI: Museums

New York University's (NYU) Institute for Public Knowledge, Sloane Lab, and the Digital Technology for Democracy Lab at the University of Virginia (UVA) invite you to a new discussion in the series “Co-Opting AI.” This will be a completely virtual event. 

This discussion will critically examine the implications of integrating AI systems into museums as spaces of interdisciplinary learning, creativity, research, and intercultural dialogue. 

Join panelists Jeff Steward, Director of Digital Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies at Harvard Art Museums, Sonja Thiel, curator and philosopher, Raul Zbengheci, Deputy Director at NEW INC, and moderator Mona Sloane, Assistant Professor of Data Science and Media Studies and Faculty Co-Lead of the Digital Technology for Democracy Lab at UVA in a conversation that will critically examine the implications of integrating AI systems into museums as spaces of interdisciplinary learning, creativity, research, and intercultural dialogue. 

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Jeff Steward is currently director of Digital Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies (DIET) at Harvard Art Museum, where he manages a small team that builds data pipelines, supports broad access to institutional records, visualizes cultural datasets, creates tools for making art fun, accessible, and enjoyable; and explores the merits of human and synthetically generated data. For over twenty years, Jeff has worked at museums with museum data. He’s spent that time working on the fundamental interconnectedness of all things at two major art museums in the greater Boston Area: MFA, Boston, and Harvard Art Museums. 

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Sonja Thiel is a curator and philosopher currently researching the impact and use of AI technologies in museums. She has worked as a digital curator, a program manager in museum studies, and as a community and outreach curator in Germany. In her last museum project, she worked on the development of software to support AI-based curation and on capacity and skill building within the German network AI & museums. She is the editor of the book ‘AI in Museums’ (2023). Next to socio-technical observations, her current interests include ethics and a critical theory of AI. 

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Raul Zbengheci is a Romanian-American producer, organizer, and director. He is currently the Deputy Director at NEW INC, where he leads programming and strategy for the renowned art, design, and technology program, including organizing NEW INC’s first festival, DEMO, which took place June 2023 and 2024. He specializes in live and time-based art, ranging from performance and dance to multi-media installations. If contemporary art and culture function today as an archipelago comprised of small islands, Zbengheci situates himself in the waters between them, following the currents and floating softly between different mediums, influences, and technologies. He works in the gaps between visual art, emergent technologies, contemporary performance, and public, site-specific art. 

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Mona Sloane, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Data Science and Media Studies at the University of Virginia (UVA). As a sociologist, she studies the intersection of technology and society, specifically in the context of AI design, use, and policy. She also convenes the Co-Opting AI series and serves as the editor of the Co-Opting AI book series at the University of California Press as well as the Technology Editor for Public Books. At UVA, Mona runs Sloane Lab, which conducts empirical research on the implications of technology for the organization of social life. Its focus lies on AI as a social phenomenon that intersects with wider cultural, economic, material, and political conditions. The lab spearheads social science leadership in applied work on responsible AI, public scholarship, and technology policy. 

The Co-Opting AI event series is convened by Mona Sloane. It is hosted by NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, UVA’s Digital Technology for Democracy Lab, and Sloane Lab.