Special Topic: Readers' Advisory and AI

 For my special topics paper, I wrote about the current state of AI and its usage in a readers' advisory context. To start, I wrote about Talpa, an AI that is built to find the book title and author for those who have forgotten what the book is called. While it is still in its experimental phase, the AI is built in such a way that it is limited to just a few sources and the catalog of the library that hosts it. Thus, there are thousands, perhaps millions, of books that Talpa will never be able to identify. To remedy this, I recommended that people wishing to identify a book turn to the Reddit page r/whatsthatbook whose 239,000 members (238,000 at the time of writing my paper) help to identify books with the advantage of being able to write a much longer description. Their success rate is commendable and a fantastic resource for people who have scoured the internet to no avail.

I also discussed ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, that many librarians are already using for readers' advisory. While ChatGPT can create successful recommendations, The Galecia Group's "prAIrie" experiment proved that ChatGPT is also capable of "hallucinating" a proper answer when it is unsure of the question or prompt, which skews the accuracy and reliability of the answer. If ChatGPT is capable of producing incorrect answers, then it may be necessary for librarians to cross-reference all of its answers, which puts the librarian in the same place they would have been if they had simply Googled the question. 

My conclusion:

"AI, for good or ill, is a technology that is not going away anytime soon. Because of this, librarians must know how to utilize the multiple programs that continue to come out every day to assist their patrons in using them for themselves. AI can be a helpful tool for readers’ advisory, and indeed it can prove to be a success in matching a book to relevant recommendations. However, there are still holes in the cloth that need patching if it is to be a fully reliable tool for busy librarians or patrons looking for a book on their own. Anyone who uses AI should be aware of the fact that these programs are as of yet incapable of doing what we ask with relevance and reliability every time. They should also know how limited AI is. Most AI programs take from data they find on the internet, and thus nothing they create is truly original no matter how seamless or knowledgeable it may sound. You have a better time finding original content in day-to-day conversations with friends who like to recommend books over a robot stuck in 1’s and 0’s. Abandon all preconceived notions and expectations, ye who enter here. AI has a long way to go before it can surpass the knowledge and creativity of humankind…or your local librarian."

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