ekip Events

What are the impacts of AI scraping on the digital heritage sector and wider digital commons? People in the creative and heritage sectors are invited to explore this question at an event hosted by Sound & Vision and the University of Edinburgh, as part of ekip, along with AIxDesign, featuring a panel and creative zine-making workshop.

Context

Cultural Heritage Institutions have long contributed to the digital commons. Commons-based resources have flourished thanks to the assets shared by cultural institutions and their communities of practice encouraging access and reuse. Making data available to the digital commons fosters learning and creativity – very much contributing to, in turn, the public missions of cultural heritage institutions.

Currently this sector’s online collections – particularly those on the open web and with commons-based licenses – are experiencing the effects of industrial-scale AI scraping tools on their vital infrastructure. While LLMs offer the possibility of exposing heritage and cultural content to new audiences, these products are also creating new risks and harms for the sector. Larger organisations’ online systems are being burdened with excessive, machine-sourced web traffic. Cultural Heritage Institutions are seeing reduced human traffic to their collections, while users are encountering their historical data outside proper contexts – issues affecting society’s access to heritage more broadly.

This event is online only.

Event Agenda

• 10:00-10:10: Introduction by ekip

• 10:10-11:15: Panel featuring leading perspectives from leading cultural heritage and digital commons institutions. Featured speakers to be announced soon!
• 11:15-11:30: Break
• 11:30-12:55: Workshop by AIxDesign: groups will discuss key issues for the digital commons in the era of AI: how do we define the digital commons in 2026? What are top challenges to heritage-based commons posed by AI scraping? What are key opportunities? What policies would best support the sector’s engagement with the digital commons?
• 12:55-13:00: Closing with reflections on key learnings

Taking part in research on AI and the digital commons

Participants at this event will be taking part in research carried out by the University of Edinburgh; the research investigates the risks that archival bodies and digital collections are facing from AI-driven content extraction tools. For information about this research, please see the project’s Study Information Sheet.

The research is funded by ekip, the European Cultural and Creative Sectors and Industries Policy Platform, an interdisciplinary four-year Horizon Europe project running from 2023-2026.

This event is the sixth in a series of Open Innovation Factories organised by the University of Edinburgh as part of ekip.

Register Here