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The Three Laws of AI Governance

By Nik Honeysett

Welcome to the latest installment in CFM’s exploration of all things museums and artificial intelligence. This week the estimable Nik Honeysett proposes some simple laws to govern museums’ use of AI. To catch up with our …
Museums and AI: Critical Decisions

By Elizabeth Merritt

Welcome to CFM’s summer series on all things Artificial Intelligence. To catch up with our coverage so far, read three scenarios of potential AI futures—bright, dark, and muddling through—commentary by Nik Honeysett on how AI is changing …
Mining the National Archives: New Exhibition Sparks Personalized Discovery with AI

By Patrick Madden

CFM’s summer dive into artificial intelligence has included scenarios of potential futures, and commentary from the field. The series will also profile examples of “killer applications”—ways in which AI can help museums do things that …
The Four Illusions of AI: Implications for Museum Practice

By Nik Honeysett

I introduced our exploration of artificial intelligence with three stories of potential futures, laying the groundwork for a broader exploration of how museums might navigate this swiftly changing landscape. Today Nik Honeysett, Chief …
How Museums Can Resist Censorship

By Elizabeth Larison

As the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) points out, “every generation of Americans faces new and significant challenges to free expression.” The White House’s escalating attacks on the Smithsonian can be seen as part of a …
AI Futures: The Cost of Doing Nothing

By Elizabeth Merritt

This is the third entry in CFM’s summer series on the perils and promise of artificial intelligence. Having bounced from one side of the Cone of Plausibility—an optimistic future—to the other—an AI dystopia—today we are going to explore a …
How to respond to new threats to nonprofits

By Elizabeth Merritt

Last week, I learned that the IRS is planning to propose regulations that would give it the power to strip nonprofit status from organizations for noncompliance with the administration’s anti-DEAI positions. (You can read the story for …
A Letter from the Frontlines of the AI-pocalypse

By Elizabeth Merritt

This is the second in a series of posts I hope will help readers navigate the perils and promise of AI. In part one, I put on my happy hat and tried to imagine the best plausible future shaped by artificial intelligence. Now let’s veer to …
Forecasting the AI Future: What’s the Best that Could Happen?

By Elizabeth Merritt

A sampling of recent pronouncements in the news: How can we possibly make sense of these conflicting predictions? Given this range of possible outcomes, how can you, and your museum, navigate the promise and perils of artificial …
A Future of “Uniform Guidance”

By Elizabeth Merritt

Foresight…Insight…Action That’s the framework the Institute for the Future uses to navigate uncertainty with concrete, tactical action. Last week’s museum foresight: flagging the Office of Management and Budget’s new proposed funding …