The human element in digital heritage: an interview with Ines Vodopivec

is a scholar, institutional leader, and international policy voice, she currently serves as Chair of artificial intelligence for libraries, archives, and museums (AI4LAM) the global network that is becoming the reference community for responsible artificial intelligence (AI) adoption across the gallery, libraries, archives, museums (GLAM) sector.Her background is both deep and wide: she has served as Deputy Director of the National and University Library of Slovenia, sat on the Management Board of the Europeana Network Association, and contributed to the UNESCO Memory of the World National Committee.In short, she brings the rare combination of on-the-ground institutional knowledge and high-level strategic vision that a moment like this demands.Under her guidance, AI4LAM has grown into a genuinely global coalition.Through regional chapters, specialized working groupsfrom speech-to-text tools to AI literacy educationand a growing web of strategic alliances with organizations such as Conference of European National Librarians (CENL), Europeana, IIIF, ICARUS, and IIPC, the network is building collective capacity that no single institution could develop alone.Its annual flagship event, Fantastic Futures, has become a landmark gathering for the field.The interview that follows offers a window into both the complexity of the challenges ahead and the clarity of purpose that Vodopivec brings to meeting them.From the ethics of data governance to the long-term preservation of AI-generated cultural artifacts, her answers reflect a practitioner who has thought carefully about where this technology is taking usand who is determined that cultural heritage professionals will help shape that destination, not simply arrive at it. Q1. AI4LAM's work suggests a paradigm shift for GLAM (gallery, libraries, archives, museums) institutions. In your view, what is the single most significant ethical challenge AI currently poses to the core mission of preserving and providing access to cultural heritage?Since the beginning of written history, institutions such as libraries, archives, and other cultural heritage institutions have been the custodians serving as the keepers and providers of reliable and trustworthy information.With the widespread public adoption of the internet, this role has increasingly been questioned, placing cultural heritage institutions at the margins of digital information accessibility.Today, in a rapidly evolving AI-driven digital landscape, this tension has reached a new peak.With the acceleration of AI-driven information delivery this long-standing role is being questioned even more.Users no longer turn first to GLAM institutions; they turn to AI systems that provide instant, synthesized answers, often without transparency about sources, accuracy, or context, or the references and sources are unreliable, even fake.