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Libraries are seeing growing interest in artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI. The market seems to be racing to develop various AI tools for libraries and their institutions. We see a spectrum of views about AI use: Many see AI as essential and the time ripe for adoption. Others prefer caution and more awareness of longer-term implications. This presentation will explore ethical questions surrounding AI in libraries. We will explore embedded implicit bias in tools built on foundation or general-purpose models that engage complex large language models, and how inequitable outputs and disparities may result. We will consider whether differential AI tool quality among different populations contributes to global or inter-community inequities. We’ll look at the known and unknown environmental and resources impact of AI development and the ethical problems they may raise. Finally, we’ll look at AI’s impact on the place of the human in library work, and how libraries can act to build equity in AI solutions, their inputs, and their outputs and continue to center the value of human expertise.
