With AI’s ability to automatically produce content and process complicated datasets with high accuracy, museums worldwide are exploring ways in which this innovative technology can help them better achieve their missions and advance accessibility efforts. Through case studies, learn about three applications of this technology: content digitalization, language accessibility, and visual description.
October was filled with new debates on AI policies, a halt to one of the most significant AI safety bills in the United States, and a host of new AI developments in video, music, and even podcasts.
Arts and cultural nonprofits often operate in multiple markets for earned and contributed revenue. With increasing attention on data-driven decision making, effective market orientation often depends on effective data use. This fundamental collection, transmission, use, and interpretation of data within an organization collectively contributes to what can be considered an organization’s data culture.
Museums have increasingly begun to volunteer their spaces as polling places, acting as a democratic vehicle for their communities and adding to the greater fabric of America’s election infrastructure. In doing so, they can support local democratic processes and prove to their communities that they are not unbreachable temples for the elite, but open platforms for the people.
As exemplified by the Hollywood strikes of 2023, we find ourselves in a new era of Artificial Intelligence in film and television. While studios are looking to cut costs, performers seek job security, and consumers seek quality content. Through research conducted in collaboration with facial motion capture technology provider Faceware Technologies Inc., Master of Entertainment Industry Management students at Carnegie Mellon sought to gain insight on how AI-generated content will transform existing industries, including how this technology could affect employment in the entertainment industry, content development, budgets, contracts, legislation, and privacy rights.
Every year we review our analytics to highlight what you, our readers, have found the most compelling. In 12 short months, we have witnessed waves of new technology erupt onto the marketplace, like OpenAI’s Dall-e, and others tumble into chaos, most notably cryptocurrency. The top 10 show how YOU have followed the change.
The video gaming business is now a world-leading entertainment industry with nearly 180 billion U.S. dollars in market value (Statista, 2021). As more private information and in-game data are collected and utilized to support gaming, it may also threaten the safety of gamers' privacy. Therefore, it is essential for gaming companies to understand the business implications of collecting and using gamers’ private information. There have been studies that take account of the privacy landscape across industries, but privacy in the gaming industry remains less examined given its complexity and rapid recent growth.
Throughout my tenure as Chief Editor of Research at AMT Lab, I have focused on the benefits of the gaming industry for nonprofits, as well as the monopolistic tendencies and battles of Big Tech, specifically regarding arts and entertainment. Recently, these two worlds have collided, as a wave of consolidation in the gaming industry has raised a new set of antitrust concerns across the globe. In the center of it all? None other than Microsoft, a Big Tech giant that has evaded the antitrust spotlight over the past few years – until now. Due to the expanding value of the video gaming industry at over $300 billion, mergers and acquisitions seemed an obvious destiny bound for the trials and tribulations of antitrust litigation. Microsoft has successfully inserted itself into the gaming industry, incited the largest wave of consolidation that it has ever seen, and merged its dominant position in the sector with its Big Tech-skewed Metaverse goals.
As noted in How Video Games Can Serve as an Engagement Experience, video games, particularly RPGs, are widely popular and engaging with exceptional character and plot structure. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt exemplify Aristotle’s model of dramatic tragedy in a modern form. These case studies prove that video games are fun, tragedy is fun, and by marrying the two, arts organizations can experiment with exciting new forms of audience engagement!
The video game industry expanded rapidly in the last decade with the U.S.A games market exceeding revenues of $43 billion in 2018. While there is growth, the industry is also facing an increasingly apparent and problematic disparity among audiences. In many traditional PC and console genres, women and non-white ethnicities are underrepresented both among the player-base as well as on-screen; furthermore, the player experience for underrepresented players is markedly different than their over-represented white male counterparts.
This March, it’s game on in the world’s most visited museum, the Louvre. A delivery of 5000 Nintendo 3DS consoles shall be left at the footsteps of the museum in an effort to revamp its audio guides, which are currently used by a mere 4% of its total visitors.
Not much is known regarding the content or how the in-built 3D capabilities will be utilized but Mashable reports that visitors will “have access to themed itineraries and commentaries, including child-appropriate ones, in seven languages.” The content of the tour is being developed by Nintendo in collaboration with the Louvre, who will have editorial control.
With so much emphasis on the Tablet-Smartphone duumvirate, gaming consoles have certainly been overlooked. Even though certain games have surfaced, such as Tate Trumps, they have hitherto, been developed for the hand-held tour guide technology that triumphs; the iPhone, the Droid, the HTC, or the iPad.
Additionally, there has not been much innovation in the field of audio guide technology, and even the audio tours themselves are static because they are based on a one-way communication channel. Thus, the Nintendo 3DS does sound promising as an audio guide technology that can offer 3D visuals and maybe, some playfulness?
So now the question everybody would like to ask; will there be games, intellectually inclined games? Let’s hope so! Last year, Andre asked whether the arts can successfully have a game dynamic? In his article, he argued that games would help arts organizations “overcome certain aesthetic hurdles” and organizations should adopt games because of their “potential for growth.”
And growth there shall be. In fact, an article in the Economist states that “video games will be the fastest-growing and most exciting form of mass media over the coming decade.” Furthermore, the current figures for the gaming industry itself are astounding; “the global video game market was worth around $56 billion in 2010”, which is “ more than twice the size of the recorded-music industry, nearly a quarter more than the magazine business and about three-fifths the size of the film industry...” And this market is expected to reach sales of $82 billion by 2015!
Interestingly, the Economist also notes that the average age of players in America is 37, with 42% of them being female. With the incredible popularity of a bunch of angry birds and virtual farming, it's no surprise that the adult world surely likes to play every now and then. Yet playing on gaming consoles such as the Nintendo 3Ds falls in the domain of a somewhat younger demographic. So the Louvre’s new entry will certainly entice children to go whizzing about the museum, but what about the adults?
Maybe they will, for once, follow in the footsteps of their children. Maybe they won’t. Only March will tell. But one can’t deny that Nintendo consoles are certainly a fun way to begin the auditory odyssey towards art appreciation and knowledge of art history.
Meanwhile in the Louvre, behind her glass enclosure, and with onlookers abound, the Mona Lisa smiles. Gaming is her secret.
