Nasrin Mostofian was awarded a bursary to attend the Digital Humanities Oxford Summer School in 2024. To join the mailing list and learn about the next summer school sign up here. Read about Nasrin's experience at the summer school here:
I am Nasrin, a PhD candidate at the department of ALM in Uppsala University, Sweden. During my attendance at the three-day online strand, AI and Creative Technology, I learned many new concepts. The summer school also enhanced my knowledge about Large Language Models and the use of AI in art. The introductory session was a good warm-up, covering literature and history, from Ada Lovelace to symbolic AI and analytical engines. It was a pleasure listening to professor David De Roure’s talk where he gave an overview of AI and ML and the use of AI in music. On day one we also benefited from Dominik Lukes’s talk that was centred on LLMs and the advantages that AI has in solving communicational human problems such as language barriers.
In other sessions of the online strand various aspects of pioneering technologies in
research were examined, from using computer modeling to build 3D models of historical architecture and its challenges, to the significant role of researchers and ethics in research, and to the impact of augmented reality in people's lives and museums.
In my own research I scrutinise the possible role of AI in enabling pictorial collections in museums to represent diversity and inclusion as it emerges within the context of gender and ethnicity. While the variety of topics presented at the summer school was generally illuminating for my work, I found some of the talks particularly useful. For instance, discussions about the ambiguity in the advantageousness of involving AI-based tools, such as computer vision, in the heritage sector and collections, from both technical and sociohistorical perspectives, were especially relevant to my research topic.
I am very pleased with my achievement of participating in this summer school and am very grateful for being awarded the scholarship to attend DHOxSS. I would recommend Oxford Digital Humanities Summer School to all students in the field of digital humanities.
