Technology and Libraries: A Reckoning

About This Event

This is not another AI talk. This is a talk about libraries, about technology, and about revenge. In the early twentieth century, a now-archaic camera technology swept the library world, with promises of cheaply and rapidly democratizing access to knowledge. But with the introduction of the Photostat Machine came new questions about who was responsible for stewarding and disseminating knowledge, and what obligations came with that responsibility. In this talk, we will put agentic AI in its place by situating it alongside other transformative library technologies like the Photostat. We will consider how these tools can help librarians achieve their missions in new ways, and also how systems of power and influence shape the impact that new technologies have on the communities that use them. And we will talk about what to do when technologies are used to achieve external goals, like the consolidation of wealth and power, at the expense of the work we are here to do.

Featured Guests

• Hannah Alpert-Abrams