Reading the World: What’s Your Place in History?

In this blog, we’ll also be sharing reading that we find interesting and thoughtful. I’m happy to open the 'Reading the World' section with one of my own pieces.

For many of us, AI and big tech feel like forces shaping the future. I felt much the same until I realised that what we talk about far less is how these technologies are quietly transforming the way we understand the past.

I’m sharing this piece not only because it is timely, but because I truly enjoyed working on it. During its development, I had the chance to meet cultural practitioners and technologists who are passionately rethinking how memory is preserved and interpreted in the digital age. Their work sits at the crossroads of care, innovation, and responsibility.

The article explores how digital and AI tools are reshaping our relationship with history. As museums, libraries, and cultural institutions rethink their role, we are only just beginning to reflect on how today’s digital traces will shape tomorrow’s understanding of who we were.

An ideal example of how accessible the history of Europe might look is a multidimensional digital model of Venice, reconstructing a thousand years of its history into an animated map – the project that sparked the initial Time Machine concept.

Originally published in Envoy Magazine. Read the full article