Artificial intelligence is creating sophisticated interactive displays to keep us engaged.
What questions would you ask of your favorite deceased artist or head of state? Museums use all kinds of technology to keep viewers and especially children engaged in history. Artificial intelligence is the next tool in the museum canon and is an ideal place for 3D holograms. For one, museums have the funding to collaborate and create an interactive avatar that is both educational and a popular ticket-selling attraction.
The Museum of Art and Photography in Bangalore has collaborated with Accenture Labs to create a digital twin of painter M.F. Husain who died in 2011. Husain’s avatar uses facial recognition and speech and language processing that allows the avatar to respond to questions in real-time and can answer questions about his life and work.
The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust created a series of holographic first-person Holocaust survivor stories. Many of the survivors are known from documentary interviews or memoirs like the late Eva Kor. While survivors such as Kor have recorded their experiences for future generations to engage in, Shoah’s holograms are interactive and their machine learning allows the holographic Kor to answer any question you may have about her experience.
Over the next few years, the Imperial War Museum and Science Museum Group have partnered with Perception, a deep tech augmented reality company, to create holographic AR experiences to educate thousands of children worldwide.
Largely funded museums can afford to invest in 3D interactive technology but when will it be available for consumers? Can you imagine a day when you open an app on your smartphone and up pops grandma in your living room answering questions about her life? Isn’t this what consumers want? The most common question that gets asked by viewers as they leave the Holocaust survivor stories is when will this technology be available for their own families?
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. practice research student in photography and artificial intelligence, journalist, author, artist, and filmmaker.
