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was invited to speak at Rob McGee's and Geoff Payne's President's Summit at the 2019 ALA Midwinter. Four years ago, Rob's invitation to be part of this event was one of the first times anyone had shown interest in what we had to say about the future of libraries. And for a group with a big vision that inspiration is invaluable. This year the session was about Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Libraries.
For those not familiar, the President's Summit has gone on for almost 20 years and is a panel of about 10-12 library thought leaders - an impressive collection of CEO's and other big thinkers from major players in the public, cultural and higher ed library markets.
The vendor panelists talked about the impact AI is having on their own businesses (mostly automating to reduce labor costs). And of course the discussion steered into an intellectual examination of the societal impacts that surround any conversation about creating machines that are smarter than us and the potential outcomes from having done that. To be honest, I felt completely out of place.
Perhaps, I felt out of place because we are not one of the big companies thinking about how these technologies may improve shareholder returns, strategic position or other corporate driven priorities. On...