Libraries, Neutrality, and Digital Bias: How Libraries Can Help Patrons Evaluate Digital Content and Recognize Biases
Carlos Ruiz
With so much information available online, and even more being generated by artificial intelligence (AI), it can be easy to trust the wrong sources. Libraries can help reduce digital content bias and promote neutrality by helping patrons identify misinformation.
Libraries can offer information literacy workshops to help patrons become more critical thinkers by learning to better evaluate their sources and recognize biases. Being able to discern between factual and biased information can make patrons aware of how algorithms play a significant role.
Algorithms tend to prioritize content based on user engagement. When it comes to certain searches, content presented can be unbalanced and becomes echo chambers of a user’s preferences. By providing access to diverse resources including open access sources, libraries can help expose users to various viewpoints. Guiding patrons to fact-checking databases and available checklists for evaluating resources can be effective tools.
With added ease at which artificial intelligence can create data which can not only be biased due to certain training data models, but also be affected by hallucinations, it is important for patrons to be aware how this can impact what they might be reading. These hallucinations can be attributable to errors in their training models, inference errors, or inherent limits of AI technology. While AI can be a wonderful tool to supplement learning, it cannot provide interpretations, and thus the thinking piece will be left to readers.
Overall, by helping patrons become more informed evaluators of their reading, libraries can help them expand critical thinking skills in order to become more neutral consumers of information.
Carlos Ruiz