A little chapter 7 (part 1) fun fact ✨
If MC chooses to try again with Kahle before she exits the Den, they’ll ask her: “What did you give Virano, in exchange for what was in that box he handed you?”
If MC had forgotten to add the words “what was in” to their question, Kahle’s answer would’ve been “nothing.”
This was a fun moment for me to give a nod to MC’s training in speaking with Fey (or in this case, an Avir who was leaning into her Fey-blooded side). I love to play with specificity in language. I can’t always write things agents say perfectly - even though I imagine them doing so - because it can get a little pedantic. But this one was as close to perfect as I’ve been able to get so far, and I was quite happy with it 😄
8 notes
·
View notes
Ok. I am maybe kind of losing my mind just a little bit.
A few days ago, I mentioned in a post that the IA only cares about information being digitized, not about actual digital access. And I mentioned that access includes patrons being able to actually find what they are looking for, and suggested IA did not prioritize that critical aspect of access. But I didn't really go into any more detail.
So someone over on bluesky linked to this write-up of a talk Brewster Kahle gave about using so-called AI. And one of his reported statements made my mouth drop open in shock.
...and then I read further in the article and realized it was incorrectly reporting basic facts around Hachette, so I had to go and listen to the whole speech myself.* (And I want to say, briefly - he raises some legitimate potential uses for LLMs! He's kind of a dick about some of it ("it's up to us to go and keep [Balinese] culture alive"), but some of the things he's talking about actually seem useful.)
*Incidentally, while Kahle doesn't lie about the ALA brief in the speech, he absolutely misleads about the nature and facts of the case and deliberately omit the part of the story where the IA decided to suspend the one-to-one owned-to-loan ratio thing, despite repeatedly emphasizing that one-to-one was what the IA was doing with their lending program.
And oh my god. He really said what the article reports. (This portion starts around 20:10.)
He says that the IA has scanned over 18,000 periodicals. And that they used to have professional librarians manually create descriptions of the periodicals in order to catalog them. (Sidenote: there are existing directories, but he describes their licensing terms as "ridiculous." This is not a field I know much about, but I spoke to one person who agreed, though for different reasons. His reason is that you can only license, not purchase, the directory descriptions. The person I spoke to was instead focused on the prices demanded for the licenses. Regardless, the idea of creating an open, free directory seems both like an incredible amount of work and an amazing resource...if it was accurate.)
But according to Kahle, it took 45 minutes to an hour to create a description and catalog each periodical.
And so now, instead, they're using AI to make the descriptions and so it only takes 7-10 minutes!
"And yes it hallucinates, and it has some problems, and whatever — but it’s a lot faster than having to write it yourself!"
Oh. My god.
Just.
YOU ARE KNOWINGLY INTRODUCING AI HALLUCINATIONS INTO YOUR CATALOG?!
(And yes, he says that they are "confirmed by a librarian" but it can't really be, not if it's only taking 7-10 minutes! Maybe the librarian can do a quick check for super obvious errors, but actually checking a AI's summary work requires actually going back to the source and reviewing it yourself!)
I just....
I need to emphasize for those of you for who aren't familiar - if a book or article is miscataloged, it is effectively lost. Because it doesn't mater if a library or an archive owes it - if someone can't find it when they are looking for it, it is not only inaccessible, the only way to find it again is through chance. Imagine if you went into a library, but instead of organized shelves (where if even if you can't find what you're looking for, the librarians know where to look), every single book was just piled in a heap.
If a book is miscateloged, it still exists, but it is lost, not truly accessible. And they know that this is happening, "but whatever." Because Brewster Kahle doesn't actually care about real, practical, digital access. (Much less non-digital access.)
(And then to top it off, he goes on to criticize the Library of Congress for not being "access oriented.")
I just. 18,000 periodicals. And they've knowing, recklessly lost who knows how many of them. I feel like crying.
18,000 periodicals.
573 notes
·
View notes
Kahl barely survived being baked but he looks acceptable (the burnt edges look neat tbh) so there will be a place for him on my bag next to Necraloid
Here's him before the baking:
62 notes
·
View notes