@ GLAM professionals
Remember about 8 months ago when I made this video discussing the "Living Museum" AI app that is fraught with incorrect information and allows you to "chat" with human remains and culturally sensitive items?
Well, the creator, Jonathon Talmi, is now a speaker at the world-renowned Museum Next summit.
Gross.
I have sent an email to MuseumNext that is as follows:
Hello,
I am emailing MuseumNext as a GLAM professional and former speaker to express my disappointment at the presence of one of your presenters, Jonathon Talmi in the 2025 Digital Summit. As you know, he is the creator of the "Living Museum" app, an AI app that scraped data from the British Museum collection search (without their knowledge or permission) and created chatbots for individual artifacts.
Talmi has stated that the program has two functions: to create an exhibit (which it does poorly and the "exhibit" is no different than a Google search filled with incorrect and inaccruate information) and to allow the user to chat with artifacts (including contested items in the British Museums collection, culturally sensitive items, and even human remains!). I have discussed my issues with this program at length in a critical YouTube video, which you can view here.
As I stated in my response video to this project, I do believe that there is space for artificial intelligence in the GLAM sector. However, the Living Musuem is a poor example of how this can be used - it is fraught with mistakes and is an unethical nightmare of a program.
Any GLAM professional worth their salt will condemn this, and I worry about the reputation of MuseumNext going forward if you allow this speaker at your summit. Your website boasts that: "MuseumNext has been sharing best practices and shaping how museums use digital technology for over fifteen years," but this is not best practice. Not even close.
I am asking that you re-examine "The Living Museum" app, discuss the ethical rammifications of this program museum professional or an ethics committee, and reconsider allowing Jonathon Talmi to share this program at your summit.
Please let me know if you have any further questions.
Sincerely,
Christeah
I'm so incredibly disappointed in MuseumNext for this. I had hoped to one day present with them again, but I am not sure if I want to do that anymore.













