This week turns to visual analysis — how AI interprets images, maps, artworks, and visualizations, and what that means for humanities teaching. We’ll also examine the copyright and attribution questions that arise when AI engages with visual material.

NEH Workshop 3: AI for Visual Analysis (June 10, 10 AM - noon, CHDR) — This workshop explores AI tools for interpreting and working with visual materials in humanities courses. Students who attend will reflect on and extend the discussion exercise; those who do not will complete it asynchronously.

Readings

• Sinclair, Stéfan and Geoffrey Rockwell. “Visualization.” Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities.
• Kies and Stanfill. “From Algorithms to Attribution: Teaching AI and Copyright.” (PDF in Webcourses)
• Cohen, Dan. “A Museum’s Sublime Hallucinations.” Humane Ingenuity.

Discussion Prompt

Workshop Exercise - Visual Analysis. Using Claude Artifacts, upload an set of images relevant to your discipline that are either in the public domain or you have the right to use (archival photographs, artwork, maps, data visualizations) and use Claude to analyze, describe, or interpret them. Reflect on how AI reads visual material compared to trained humanistic interpretation. What does AI notice, what does it miss, and what would students learn from critically evaluating AI-assisted visual analysis? Try building metadata and creating a visual tools for exploring the images.