Exploration on the Innovation of Digital Images for the Living Inheritance of Intangible Cultural Heritage in the AI Era

The living inheritance of intangible cultural heritage (ICH, hereinafter referred to as "ICH") is the core carrier for the continuation of cultural genes. Its essence lies in realizing the intergenerational transmission of skills and the living continuation of culture through the dynamic interaction of "human-practice-scenario". Currently, the living inheritance of ICH in China faces practical dilemmas such as the intergenerational gap among inheritors (the average age of national-level inheritors is 64 years old), the temporal and spatial limitations of practical scenarios (offline inheritance covers less than 10 million people), and low participation willingness of young audiences (only 12% of the 18-30 age group participates in ICH practices). Although digital images provide a carrier for inheritance, the traditional one-way recording mode can hardly meet the living needs of "dynamic interaction and continuous participation". The iteration of artificial intelligence (AI) technology (such as multimodal motion capture, AI-Generated Content (AIGC) interactive generation, and big data matching algorithms) has injected new impetus into digital images for the living inheritance of ICH — by dynamically capturing the details of the inheritance process, generating immersive practical image scenarios, and building a full-chain inheritance resource ecosystem, it promotes ICH from "static archiving" to "dynamic inheritance".