UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND — Professors Taylor Arnold and Lauren Tilton from the University of Richmond have secured a $250,000 grant to advance their research. This funding is part of a broader $750,000 award from Schmidt Sciences and involves collaboration with two esteemed institutions.
In conjunction with colleagues at UC Berkeley and Bowdoin College, Arnold, who specializes in data science and statistics, along with Tilton, a professor of digital humanities and the director of UR’s Center for Liberal Arts and AI, will create innovative AI models designed to analyze film and television.
While existing AI models can evaluate two-dimensional images, they often fail to interpret the intricacies of how or why specific filming techniques were employed. Over the next two years, this project aims to utilize new AI models to explore aspects such as camera movement, narrative arcs, and the use of editing and dialogue to convey meaning. The Richmond team has plans to study the evolving patterns across thirty long-running television series.
“This initiative marks significant progress for both the fields of humanities and AI,” explained Tilton. “Our research will enhance AI’s capacity not just to identify objects in moving images but also to examine underlying patterns—a crucial advancement for the scholarly community engaged with digital media.”
Arnold and Tilton’s endeavors in the realm of digital humanities have previously received backing from the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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