Could Snapchat have a solution to the Elgin Marbles row?
Rishi Sunak is known to love tech, so could it offer a way out of his awkward diplomatic row with Greece over the Elgin Marbles?
The augmented reality (AR) boffins at Snap think it could.
The creators of the app most people associate with wearing silly filters have branched out into culture and the arts, offering new ways for visitors to experience history at some of the world’s most illustrious museums and galleries.
Snap’s AR has been used to reinvent exhibitions at Amsterdam‘s Rijksmuseum, Miami‘s trendy Art Basel fair, London‘s Design Museum, and most recently the iconic Louvre in Paris.
The museum’s department of Egyptian antiquities now features 3D reconstructions of long-lost artwork and other historic monuments, viewable on phones via QR codes or the Snapchat camera.
If it’s good enough for the Louvre, could it be good enough for the British Museum, and allow the Elgin Marbles to return to Greece?
Read more:
What are the Elgin Marbles and why are they in the British Museum?
Why did the King wear a tie covered in Greek flags?
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What’s the Elgin Marbles row about?
History in your hands
“We have initiated discussions,” jokes Donatien Bozon, director of Snap’s AR studio in Paris.
His 14-strong team was formed last year with the mission of bringing AR to art, culture, and education, proving Snapchat’s tech can go well beyond putting virtual dog ears on your friends.
Cultural institutions showed interest in tapping into the app’s audience of 750 million users, he says, as well as bringing new experiences to regular visitors – all without needing any extra physical space.
“We were convinced we could not only leverage the front camera of the phone,” he says, referring to Snapchat’s common use case as a selfie-driven messaging app, “but also the back camera.”
“You can augment the world,” he adds. “And open up so many opportunities.”
Also at the Louvre sits a digital twin of the 222-tonne granite Luxor Obelisks. Built for Egypt’s Luxor Temple during Ramesses II’s reign, one was later moved to the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
But it had initially been considered for a spot in the Louvre’s courtyard. And so in their own bid to rewrite history, the museum worked with Snap to “remove the constraint of physics” and have one installed virtually.
Point your phone’s camera towards the spot where it could have stood, and so it appears.
A Luxor Obelisk stands at the Louvre using augmented reality technology. Pic: Snap
Where tradition meets technology
Not that AR could ever truly replace the real thing.
“It’s in the name,” says Bozon. “It’s augmenting the experience, not replacing it.”
Probably not actually a satisfying solution to the Elgin Marbles row, then.
But the British Museum has dabbled in AR. Primarily aimed at children, it lets guests embark on AR-driven tours through the Roman Empire and Parthenon using Samsung tablets.
The British Library has also leveraged the tech for its own exhibitions, as some of the world’s oldest institutions, proudly steeped in tradition, look to keep up with the times.
Qi Pan, Snap’s director of computer vision, says AR lets them “do things that were not possible before”.
His London team is responsible for how the firm’s tech actually works, both on phones and in a hypothetical future where millions of us walk around wearing futuristic spectacles.
“A lot of AR today is on mobile, where we’re limited by seeing it through a small rectangle,” he says.
“AR glasses will let you see it directly in the world around you.”
Accessible artwork
Despite previous attempts at such lenses from the likes of Google and Snap itself having failed to achieve a mainstream breakthrough, Pan is confident AR is on the cusp of a “hardware paradigm shift”.
Apple’s upcoming mixed reality headset may help prove him right, though likely not while priced at £2,800.
For now, the appeal of AR artwork is its accessibility – not just for users who just need a phone to experience it, but also the creators behind what they see.
By teaching himself how to create AR art at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, British artist Doddz went from school struggles to a six-figure salary.
Traditionalists might cry foul, but his success seems testament to a fresh take on artwork that people can view anywhere and take with them too.
Bozon says: “Ten years ago you wouldn’t bet on being a YouTuber as a real job.
“Ten years from now, building in AR will be a real job for thousands of people.”
Let’s hope the marbles row is over by then too.
The Stone Roses bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield has died at the age of 63, his family has said.
Mani’s brother, Greg, said in a post on Facebook: “It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to announce the sad passing of my brother.”
“RIP RKID,” he added.
Gary “Mani” Mounfield and his wife Imelda at the world premiere of “The Stone Roses : Made Of Stone” in 2013. Pic: Reuters
Formed in 1983, The Stone Roses were a mainstay of the “Madchester” scene.
Mani joined the band in 1987 and formed part of its classic line-up alongside singer Ian Brown, guitarist John Squire and drummer Alan ‘Reni’ Wren. He remained with the group until their split in 1996.
Mani’s death comes two years after that of his wife, Imelda Mounfield, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in November 2020. The couple welcomed twin boys in 2012.
Ian Brown, left, with Mani, right, performing on stage during their 2012 reunion concerts in Manchester. Pic: Reuters
The Stone Roses frontman Brown shared a tribute online, writing: “REST IN PEACE MANi X.”
Oasis singer Liam Gallagher said he was “in total shock and absolutely devastated”, describing the bassist as “my hero”.
“RIP Mani – my heartfelt condolences to his twin boys and all of his family,” wrote the Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder, whose bandmate Rowetta added: “Back with your Imelda, Mani. Going to miss you so much. All my love to the boys, the family & all those who knew & loved him.”
The Charlatans frontman, Tim Burgess, shared a photo of himself with Mani, writing alongside it: “I shared this photo a week or so ago on Mani’s birthday.
“It never failed to bring a smile to my face – and that was exactly the same for the man himself.
“One of the absolute best in every way – such a beautiful friend.”
Echo & the Bunnymen vocalist Ian McCulloch said Mani was someone “who I have always loved and always will love, deeply and forever. Like a brother”.
He continued: “I am in shock to be honest. Please tell me I’m just having a bad, bad dream. My thoughts and feelings and Mani. Love to all of his family from me”.
Pic: Robert Marquardt/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
The “Madchester” bands were known for blending indie with acid house, psychedelia, and pop.
The Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album of 1989 was a huge success, and was named the second greatest album of all time in a “Music of the Millennium” poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian, and Classic FM.
The novel has survived the industrial revolution, radio, television, and the internet. Now it’s facing artificial intelligence – and novelists are worried.
Half (51%) fear that they will be replaced by AI entirely, according to a new survey, even though for the most part they don’t use the technology themselves.
More immediately, 85% say they think their future income will be negatively impacted by AI, and 39% claim their finances have already taken a hit.
Tracy Chevalier, the bestselling author of Girl With A Pearl Earring and The Glassmaker, shares that concern.
“I worry that a book industry driven mainly by profit will be tempted to use AI more and more to generate books,” she said in response to the survey.
“If it is cheaper to produce novels using AI (no advance or royalties to pay to authors, quicker production, retainment of copyright), publishers will almost inevitably choose to publish them.
“And if they are priced cheaper than ‘human made’ books, readers are likely to buy them, the way we buy machine-made jumpers rather than the more expensive hand-knitted ones.”
Chevalier, author of the book Girl With A Pearl Earring, with the painting of the same name. Pic: AP
Why authors are so worried
The University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy asked 258 published novelists and 74 industry insiders how AI is viewed and used in the world of British fiction.
Alongside existential fears about the wholesale replacement of the novel, many authors reported a loss of income from AI, which they attributed to “competition from AI-generated books and the loss of jobs which provide supplementary streams of income, such as copywriting”.
Some respondents reported finding “rip-off AI-generated imitations” of their own books, as well books “written under their name which they haven’t produced”.
Last year, the Authors Guild warned that “the growing access to AI is driving a new surge of low-quality sham ‘books’ on Amazon”, which has limited the number of publications per day on its Kindle self-publishing platform to combat the influx of AI-generated books.
The median income for a novelist is currently £7,000 and many make ends meet by doing related work, such as audiobook narration, copywriting or ghost-writing.
Read more: The author embracing AI to help write novels
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Could the AI bubble burst?
These tasks, authors feared, were already being supplanted by AI, although little evidence was provided for this claim, which was not possible to verify independently.
Copyright was also a big concern, with 59% of novelists reporting that they knew their work had been used to train AI models.
Of these, 99% said they did not give permission and 100% said they were not remunerated for this use.
Earlier this year, AI firm Anthropic agreed to pay authors $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to settle a lawsuit which claimed the company stole their work.
The judge in the US court case ruled that Anthropic had downloaded more than seven million digital copies of books it “knew had been pirated” and ordered the firm to pay authors compensation.
However, the judge sided with Anthropic over the question of copyright, saying that the AI model was doing something akin to when a human reads a book to inspire new work, rather than simply copying.
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Most novelists – 67% – never used it for creative work, although a few said they found it very useful for speeding up drafting or editing.
One case study featured in the report is Lizbeth Crawford, a novelist in multiple genres, including fantasy and romance. She describes working with AI as a writing partner, using it to spot plot holes and trim adjectives.
“Lizbeth used to write about one novel per year, but now she can do three per year, and her target is five,” notes the author of the report, Dr Clementine Collett.
Is there a role for government?
Despite this, the report’s foreword urges the government to slow down the spread of AI by strengthening copyright law to protect authors and other creatives.
The government has proposed making an exception to UK copyright law for “text and data mining”, which might make authors and other copyright holders opt out to stop their work being used to train AI models.
“That approach prioritises access to data for the world’s technology companies at the cost to the UK’s own creative industries,” writes Professor Gina Neff, executive director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy.
“It is both bad economics and a betrayal of the very cultural assets of British soft power.”
A government spokesperson said: “Throughout this process we have, and always will, put the interests of the UK’s citizens and businesses first.
“We’ve always been clear on the need to work with both the creative industries and AI sector to drive AI innovation and ensure robust protections for creators.
“We are bringing together both British and global companies, alongside voices beyond the AI and creative sectors, to ensure we can capture the broadest possible range of expert views as we consider next steps.”
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