In March 2024, I was awarded a grant to attend the annual conference of ABTAPL, held at the University of Edinburgh. Apart from networking with a lovely group of theological librarians, I also learned a lot about AI in a library context.
In his talk, ‘Generative AI and the Chatbot Revolution’, Prof Nigel Crook spoke about the AI technologies that lay the foundation for applications such as ChatGPT. Prof Crook highlighted some of the drawbacks of machine-learning GPT (algorithms learning from data to produce data outputs, without direct programming instructions), such as unpredictable outputs which are often socially or morally unacceptable. Prof Crook said that the AI systems in use today are morally naïve. Later during the question time, I asked what can be done to combat this and he said there are efforts being made to build rules and ethical decision-making into AI but, unfortunately, the high volume of exceptions to such rules means they rarely work. In a library context, this could mean that the inability of chatbots to decipher truth will compromise the reliability of AI-powered enquiry services.
Another theme from Prof Crook’s talk was the use of AI and chatbots, such as ChatGPT, by students. ChatGPT is a chatbot that can refine text and hold a conversation with a user. You might, for example, ask it to re-phrase a clunky sentence or to write paragraphs on a given topic, in a certain style. This of course raises pertinent questions about opportunities for use and abuse of this powerful language tool. Should ChatGPT be used as an aid like spellcheck? Will people lose the ability, and patience, to overcome linguistic challenges themselves?
Leading naturally on, Prof Paul Gooding’s talk, ‘Applying AI to library collections: trends, challenges, technologies’, explored some of these questions. Prof Gooding described various AI tools, explaining how they are being utilised in library contexts. For example, AI can be used for identifying connections between data in large-scale collections and then clustering and/or classifying it, or readers might engage with chatbots to retrieve information ranging from a library’s opening times to the author of a book. While these AI tools offer exciting possibilities for research and user experience, their unpredictability and untrustworthiness raised concerns about the damage they could cause. Who in organisations would be responsible for this? What would the environmental impact of AI tools used in the libraries be, particularly those which rely on large numbers of servers to power them?
A tool that particularly caught my attention was Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR). Already, I regularly benefit from Optimal Character Recognition (OCR) (the transcription of typewritten text in images), such as when using Command-F to search for a word or phrase in a PDF. Learning that there are developing tools, such as Transkribus (READ-COOP, 2023), using AI-powered text recognition to transcribe handwriting from images and make it searchable was very exciting, particularly as many of the rare books we catalogue at Heythrop Library have handwritten annotations that can be difficult to decipher. However, two challenges facing the new technology’s development are the large quantity of data that needs inputted and its cost, which could make it unaffordable for many libraries.
AI will become increasingly embedded into the future of libraries, across sectors. Ultimately, humans are responsible for AI, and it is up to them to implement safety. Crucially, it may become incumbent on librarians to monitor the AI landscape and promote ethical engagement with these tools. Where to start with this? Prof Gooding advocated looking to CILIP’s 7 Ethical Principles (CILIP, no date) for guidance on adopting AI tools in a values-driven way.
A longer version of this blog post was published in the ABTAPL Bulletin, volume 31, number 1, Spring 2024. If you would like to read the original version, please ask the librarians to retrieve it from the library office.
References
CILIP (no date). CILIP’s Ethical Framework. Available at: https://www.cilip.org.uk/page/ethics. (Accessed: 7 April 2024).
READ-COOP (2023). Unlock the past with Transkribus. Available at: https://www.transkribus.org/. (Accessed: 7 April 2024).
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What are your thoughts about the above?