Date: 23 Nov 2025 - 23 Nov 2025
Date: Sunday, 23 November 2025
Time: 4:00–5:00 p.m.
Venue: Drake Gallery, 1/F, Fung Ping Shan Building, UMAG, HKU, 90 Bonham Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Language: English
Speaker:Katharine Butler
Please click here to register.
Abstract
Almost exactly 3 years since ChatGPT was unleashed on the public, AI’s absorption into every aspect of our world seems nearly complete. Is nowhere sacred? Katharine Butler, an entrepreneur and collector of Chinese porcelain, has been considering how AI can be applied to the study and appreciation of art. In this lecture, she will discuss both the opportunities and concerns surrounding AI in cultural institutions, examining existing projects at museums worldwide.
Butler will share experiments she has carried out with her collection of Chinese porcelain as well as that of other institutions. She will demonstrate the ‘AI curator’ she has developed through her company Museus and discuss the experiences around its implementation. Finally, she will open up the debate as to whether AI can really improve the appreciation of art and question what may get lost or stifled with its widespread adoption.
Speaker
Katharine Butler
Katharine Butler is an entrepreneur and researcher in Chinese porcelain. She has an MA in History of Art from Edinburgh University. She is CEO of Museus Inc., a start-up bringing AI technology to the study and enjoyment of art. She is curator at the Butler Collection and co-author of Leaping the Dragon Gate: The Sir Michael Butler Collection of Seventeenth-Century Chinese Porcelain (2021). A former council member of the Oriental Ceramic Society in London, she has published articles in Arts of Asia, The Asian Art Newspaper and Transactions of the Oriental Ceramics Society, and has lectured widely.
