AI and Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Loosely Coupled
A new framework provides a way for cultural heritage institutions to take advantage of the technology with fewer misgivings, and to serve students, scholars, and the public better
When Information is Networked: A Tribute to Clifford Lynch
He saw before anyone else how digital technology would enable new forms of research and learning, and completely transform the production and dissemination of knowledge
Asking Good Questions Is Harder Than Giving Great Answers
The tests we are using to assess the intelligence of AI are missing an essential aspect of human inquiry — the query itself
The Unresolved Tension Between AI and Learning
If education is accelerated using AI, will we lose some crucial aspects of learning that will prove to be problematic?
Books, AI, and the Public Good: A New Grant
A Mellon-funded project to develop an ethical, public-interest way to incorporate books into artificial intelligence
Synths and Sensibility
From Beethoven to Kraftwerk, innovative artists have used new technology to make music more human, not less
No Happy Medium for Books
A court ruling curtails the circulation of the written word
Break Expectations
Where does the ability of AI to mimic human expression end? Poetry provides a helpful case study
AI Comes for Music
As the record labels sue AI companies for generating derivative songs, let us ask: What makes a song original and human anyway?
Books are Big AI's Achilles' Heel
AI companies may have the money and the data centers, but they are badly in need of what humble libraries have in abundance
Is Science Becoming Conceptual Art?
A combination of new technologies may represent a new era for science, but one in which the lone scientist may no longer need her lab mates. Is that a good thing?
Apple's Vision + The Cost of Forever
Revisiting the original design documents for the Macintosh computer to understand why we’re in a love/hate relationship with Apple, and a comparison of how much it costs to save a book and a web page forever
The Power Broker at 50
Why Robert Caro’s monumental book remains vital for understanding how power is acquired, used, and preserved
Style and Personality
On the small but important difference between these two expressive notions
Reading and Writing
My letter to students about using AI bots to write
AI Is Coming for Scholarship Next
AI models are now ingesting scholarly content in an attempt to dispel their hallucinations. But another possibility looms: that AI will instead drag down scholarship into its muddy realm.
Can Engineered Writing Ever Be Great?
Will tools like ChatGPT that are based on large language models (LLMs) ever be able to create truly great and unique prose, rather than plausible-sounding mimicry?
What AI Tells Us About Art
A discussion of text-to-image AI tools like DALL•E and Midjourney, with cameos by Herman Melville and Dolly Parton
Bookwork and Cloud Labs
On the relationship between new genres of writing and new technologies for publication; what putting the laboratory in the cloud might mean for access and science
Humane Ingenuity 43: Your Own Personal Paul McCartney
Whenever I check out a library book that has been underlined or annotated, I think about the two anonymous students who aggressively marked up Widener...