1. I would add that what is called "AI" nowadays is not what was meant
when the term was invented. "AI" now is just another name for
statistics and statistics (especially in disguise) is very dangerous
given that untrained human beings are very bad at statistics. I would
rather that people spent less time promoting "AI" and more time becoming
aware of cognitive biases and how they infect everything we think. I
love the book title "Don't believe everything you think".
2. We are not even close and most of that technology should be
classified as torturing the data until it confesses. I was very
disappointed when I started to read a book on deep learning with Python
and discovered it was just about choosing canned statistical analyses to
get what you were already looking for. I recommend googling for tests
that show that Alexa, Siri, and Hey, Google aren't as good as the
commercials might lead you to believe, or why self-driving cars are not
coming any time soon.
3. Technology is no substitute for serious human thought. Metadata will
not save us. On this Cory Doctorow's Metacrap is my touchstone. Also
Fred Brooks's "No Silver Bullet" was right in 1986 and it is still right.
I'm not saying that techniques that come out of AI research aren't worth
using, but that we should use them instead of being used by them and
those that hype them.
Chris
On 2018-12-10 4:52 p.m., Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
> Last week I attended an artificial intelligence (AI) in libraries conference, and I've written the briefest of travelogues. [1] Some of my take-aways include:
>
> 1. Machine learning is simply the latest incarnation of AI, and
> machine learning algorithms are only as unbiased as the data used
> to create them. Be forewarned.
>
> 2. We can do this. We have the technology.
>
> 3. There is too much content to process, and AI in libraries can
> used to do some of the more mechanical tasks. The creation and
> maintenance of metadata is a good example. But again, be
> forewarned. We were told this same thing with the advent of word
> processors, and in the end, we didn’t go home early because we
> got our work done. Instead we output more letters.
>
> 4. Metadata is not necessary. Well, that was sort of a debate,
> and (more or less) deemed untrue.
>
> If you want to participate in AI for libraries-like discussions, then consider subscribing to ai4lib.
>
> [1] travelogue - https://sites.nd.edu/emorgan/2018/12/fantastic-futures/
>
> [2] ai4lib – https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ai4lib
>
> --
> Eric Lease Morgan
> University of Notre Dame
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