DAM News Round-Up – 27th June 2022
A collection of recent DAM-related articles from around the web.
Debate: Is Facial Recognition For DAM Worth The Legal Risks Or Not?
DAM News Editor Ralph Windsor introduces a rebuttal piece by MerlinOne’s David Tenenbaum in response to a recent article by Martin Wilson discussing how facial recognition technology is too fraught with copyright and legal issues for it to be a worthwhile consideration for DAM implementation. Ralph explains how, although neither individual is opposed to the use of facial recognition within DAM, the financial losses due to successful litigation (in what would undoubtedly be a precedential case) could be too great for a company to survive.
Microsoft stops selling emotion-reading tech, limits face recognition
Continuing with the theme of facial recognition technology and its potentially negative consequences, Microsoft have recently announced that it is to cease selling technology that is capable of guessing an individual’s emotions based on their image. Citing doubts over whether emotion recognition systems are rooted in science, Microsoft’s actions are part of a trend by large-scale AI providers to rein in morally ambiguous technologies, or at least decouple them from making direct emotional assumptions until a point whereby the legal, privacy and ethical implications are more fully understood.
Using AI as a perception-altering drug
This recent article from Chief Decision Scientist at Google, Cassie Kozyrkov parallels AI with drugs, in an artistic inspiration context. Cassie argues that whatever AI technology or platform is used (a number of great examples are provided, such as the highly addictive Craiyon), it is still merely a tool, and is no more inherently creative than a paintbrush. The difference between supervised vs. unsupervised machine learning is also discussed, and how behind every “good” piece of AI-generated art is, almost invariably, a large number of also-rans that didn’t quite make the grade.
Author and Taxonomist Heather Hedden examines SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organisation System), and how static internal schemas and models are becoming outmoded in a world of joined-up, platform-agnostic data systems. In this typically detailed and concise article, Heather focuses primarily on the back-end and interoperability aspects of SKOS, providing a wealth of information on the concepts, relations and implementations involved.
Museum information guidance organisation, Collections Trust, have put out a call for inspirational case studies to feature in their upcoming conference in October. If you’ve been involved in a successful cataloguing initiative and wish to share your story, get in touch now via their website or search Twitter for their #RethinkingCataloguing campaign. Submissions are being accepted in multiple formats, including video, audio, images and written text.
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