Reply To: ChatGPT et al

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

Hi Jenny, thanks for your very interesting and thoughtful comments. I too heard Michael Rosen’s interview and found it deeply worrying especially as many people seem to either be jumping headlong into the ‘what it can do for me’ or the ‘head in the sand’ camps and neither are helpful. I do feel that as school librarians we have to find a way to understand and work with it. These forum discussions are useful to all of us to help us understand and work out a way forward.

Highlighting the concerns is one way like you have above, but we also need to find ethical ways to work with it too. I remember when Wikipedia came into our schools and there was very clearly a wave of ‘you should not use it’ but if we had taken the time to understand it a little more we would have got to the place we are now, quicker. Which I feel is, like you said Jenny, ‘can be a helpful starting point’.

I do have concerns about students using it for research purposes without the knowledge and understanding about where the information comes from. This is an interesting role for school librarians and one we should not shy away from. Although there are many concerns I do think we need to find a positive way to use this technology. After all it is here to stay so lets find ways to use it ethically and cautiously. Our students of today will be using this technology within the professions of the future. We can’t put it back in the box and pretend it is not there.

I can understand why teachers are getting excited about using it as it seems to make the everyday tasks quicker, like lesson planning for example. It seems to me that if these tasks can be supported by AI then this is a positive thing.

We also need to remember that a large majority of our population, teachers and students have still not been anywhere near it, for some of the reasons you gave Jenny such as, no access to technology, but others really are not ready to work out what this can do yet or don’t see it as part of their lives.

This does not come across in main stream media or social media as you would imagine that everyone is engage which really is not the case. We are at the beginning of this wave and with our information expertise hats on we can be at the forefront of helping others find a way to work with it with understanding. We have always said that an independent learner is someone who know where to find the quality information quickly and this still is true. Just because AI is there does not mean it is the best place to find your answers and we just need to keep explain why this is still the case.

With all the concerns pointed out above and understanding that we can’t stop this wave. What can school librarians do practically and helpfully to work with AI in the future as well as highlighting its huge failings of course? Which in time will decrease I am sure.