On the Historical Gaze of Generative AI
Visions of Scandinavia in Stable Diffusion
Dados Bibliográficos
| ID | 11992956 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Emil Stjernholm (0000-0001-9871-5191, Lund University, autor correspondente), Maria Eriksson (0000-0002-7534-4268, Joint Research Center of the European Commission), Fredrik Norén (0000-0001-8820-1082, Malmö University), Fredrik Mohammadi Norén (Malmö University, Malmö) |
| Ano | 2025 |
| Páginas | 1-31 |
| Data de publicação | 2025-06-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Sim |
| Open Access | Sim |
| Tipo | ARTICLE |
| Periódico | Scandinavian Journal of History (JOURNAL) |
| Identificadores do periódico | ISSN: 0346-8755 • E-ISSN: 1502-7716 |
| Editora | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03468755.2025.2511644 |
| OpenAlex | W4411628911 |
| Idioma | EN |
| Citações recebidas | 1 |
| Referências citadas | 34 |
This article critically explores how the AI image model Stable Diffusion generates visual histories of Scandinavia in the 1930s. While the past has always been mediated, this study suggests that generative AI models constitute a black-boxed yet easily accessible tool for the narration of history. We draw on recent works in digital memory studies and use an explorative hands-on methodology to subject AI images to visual semiotic analysis to better grasp and discuss how generative models produce synthetic representations of the past. Focusing on how the model generates modernity symbols and historical figures, we unpack a series of issues concerning the relationship between AI and historical representation that warrants further research. Along with the generated results, we discuss limitations in the training data, tension between generic past and historic specificities, as well as how Stable Diffusion produces an algorithmic tourist gaze, national stereotypes, and anachronisms. This article heeds the call to employ infrastructure-centric approaches to understand how tech companies govern users’ capacity to shape memory practices and craft popular images of the past
Gaze · Generative grammar · Linguistics · Sociology · Vision · Anthropology · Computer Science · Digital Humanities and Scholarship · History · Philosophy · Research Data Management Practices · Scientific Computing and Data Management · Artificial Intelligence
Media Events
"Raw Data" Is an Oxymoron
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
Media and Nostalgia
Save As … Digital Memories
Mediated Memories in the Digital Age
Canon and Archive
Media Events
Cultural Memory and Early Civilization
On pyramids, prisms, and scalable reading
Artificial intelligence and institutional critique 2.0
Digital Games as History
Archaeology of Knowledge
Affective future and non-existent history
The digital turn in memory studies
The user is dead, long live the platform? Problematising the user-centric focus of (digital) memory studies
Cycling, modernity and national culture
Working-class Organisations and Popular Tourism, 1840-1970
Shall the robots remember? Conceptualising the role of non-human agents in digital memory communication
Synthetic Heritage
AI and memory
Digital Doping for Historians
Data orientalism
| Obras citantes distintas | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citações por ano | 1 |
| Intervalo de citações | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Velocidade de citação | current |
| Altamente citado | Não |
| Tipos de citação | Neutras: 1 |