What Are We Missing? Libraries and AI

Computers In Libraries 2025. Leslie Weir and Claire McGuire on stage with Erik Boekesteijn on the video link, Washington, DC. CC-BY

Updated March 30, 2025 at 4:27pm EST.

(Notes and references are at the bottom of the post.)

What Are We Missing? Libraries and AI? (Google Slides or pdf) was my short provocation for the March 27th Computers in Libraries keynote panel.

I made the following 5 assertions regarding the library sector’s response to AI.

1. At the heart of librarianship is a Jeffersonian/Franklinian bond between a librarian and a citizen.*
   This bond serves a profound purpose in democracy & human rights.

2. AI, developed by/for narrow, private/governmental interests, drives a wedge between librarian, citizen, and democracy.
   We are in the midst of a cultural revolution, not yet usefully recognized by public intellectuals, that cuts at the heart of our Jeffersonian/Franklinian bond. AI is one of the drivers of, and characters in, this revolution.

3. We are only investigating a small subset of AI’s scope and impact.
   As we try to understand the impact of AI on our societal purpose, we are making a “thinking error” that restricts our vision: We are primarily considering AI as an assistive technology that helps with our standard modus operandi, which is only a small subset of AI's consequences for librarianship and democracy.

4. We are misjudging the speed of AI’s emergence and the intentions of its primary owners.
   AI is emerging fast — more quickly than institutions can typically react; Big Tech has unprecedented power/wealth and a poor track record vis-a-vis culture, democracy, and human rights.

5. We have an obligation to intervene on behalf of our Jeffersonian/Franklinian purpose.
   We have the nascent skills, community, and mandate to act, as well as a history of involvement in issues of societal importance.

Action is critically important. See the link below for more info about a "23 Things" for AI.

* For readers not steeped in the lore of American librarianship, Benjamin Franklin is credited as the inventor of the free lending library. Thomas Jefferson advanced the idea that a well-educated and informed populace was essential for the success of a democratic republic.)

Notes and references

Program

Program description (CIL 2025 website), featuring Claire McGuire (IFLA), Leslie Weir (Director of Libraries and Archives Canada and president elect of IFLA), Erik Boekesteijn (National Library of the Netherlands), and me.

Get involved — 23 Things

• Climate Things website — a temporary source of information for a possible 23 AI Things project.

  • Sign up for a newsletter and/or get in touch about 23 AI Things / 23 Climate Things, or anything else… (link to climatethings.org “contact us” and newsletter sign-up form)

My Slides

What Are We Missing About AI? (Google Slides or pdf)

References for the slides

Matrix Diagram (above)

• This is the chart I showed to illustrate how we’re primarily talking about AI as an “assistive” technology — basically as an individual/office productivity tool, while more-or-less ignoring AI that has a higher level of cognitive ability/utility or a broader scope of societal impact. Here’s the full chart in various manifestations on Google Sheets.
  I used the following resources to come up with these hierarchies,

  • Ben Dickson, "The Different Types of AI: From Assisted to Superintelligence," VentureBeat, May 19, 2023. https://venturebeat.com/ai/the-different-types-of-ai-from-assisted-to-superintelligence/

  • "Types of Artificial Intelligence," Tpoint Tech, accessed February 27, 2025. This resource includes a categorization of AI based on functionalities like reactive machines, limited memory, theory of mind, and self-awareness. https://www.javatpoint.com/types-of-artificial-intelligence 

  • Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (4th Edition) (Pearson, 2020). This textbook, apparently a classic, discusses different levels of AI based on their capabilities, including distinctions between narrow AI, general AI, and superintelligence. Google Books: https://books.google.com/books/about/Artificial_Intelligence.html?id=Na8rAAAAQBAJ

Other works referenced and cited

• Yuval Harari, Nexus (2024). (Author’s site.)
  Makes a case for the profound “differentness” of AI the role it will play in shaping how we think, create communities, and discern “truth.”

• Shoshana Zuboff, Surveillance Capitalism (2018). (Wikipedia page for the book.)
  A searing description of the degree to which big tech seeks to usurp the public sphere and the public’s “right to the future tense.” This is a monumental work.

• Katie Conger and Ryan Mac (NY Times reporters), Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter (2024). (Wikipedia page for the book.)
  Documents, in day-by-day detail, Musk’s conduct and decision making. Chilling.

• Donella Meadows, Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System (1999). (PDF)
  One of the most important (and best written!) essays I’ve ever read. Meadows is one of the founders of systems thinking.

• The Web We Want, Dealing with the Dark Side of Social Media (my presentation from 2019, which delves into the sins of corporate social media.)

• Society is more than a Bazaar (a list I put together in 2018 showing 30 links/references and quotes about the dark side of social media and the transgressions of the big platform owners).

• Enshittification, Cory Doctorow’s analysis of “platform rot” — why commercial platforms like Amazon, Facebook/Instagram, and TikTok get worse over time. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification, and Cory Doctorow’s original article, a must-read: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys 

• Opinion: What Elon Musk Wants. Interview with Kira Swisher. Ezra Klein Show, New York Times, March 7, 2025. (Soft paywall, also available on YouTube.) Very good for its insights about the thought process and motivation of Silicon Valley’s tech elites.

• Opinion: The Government Knows AGI Is Coming. (Soft paywall.) Ezra Klein, New York Times, March 4, 2025.
  Valuable for its sober insistence that artificial general intelligence will arrive in the next 3 years, during the Trump administration.

• Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono (1985). (Wikipedia page for the book.) Very useful (and beautifully, unusually written) treatise on improving thinking in groups.

• How to Think Like a Philosopher by Julian Baggini (2023). (U Chicago Press.) I found this very useful, and delightful to read, regarding how to think more clearly about difficult ideas (and how to recognize and intervene when thinking mistakes are made).

Anything else? Feel free to ask!! (Link to my contact me page.)