IFRT Members Community (Open)

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The Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT) provides a forum for the discussion of activities, programs, and problems in intellectual freedom of libraries and librarians.

The IFRT Members Community group is the central hub for discussion, library and events. It is visible to all ALA members but only IFRT members can participate in the conversation.

  • 1.  IFRT Reads, too much

    Posted 20 days ago

    I read this article this morning, and while they are reading on their smart phone, it is the same processing of language. 

    https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/11/the-real-crisis-of-literacy-were-reading-too-much



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    [Wanda] [Mae][Huffaker]
    Librarian
    Salt Lake County Library
    She/Her/Hers
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  • 2.  RE: IFRT Reads, too much

    Posted 17 days ago
    Edited by Jacob Daugherty 17 days ago

    This article frames AI as something separate from humanity, but I've always seen it as an extension of us-another expression of how we process information. To me, AI resembles a pre-linguistic form of understanding: a system shaped through feedback from its users, much like a child learning which thoughts, associations, and neural pathways to keep or abandon as their worldview forms.

    My favorite line from the article was: "How would you get a robot to 'feel' time passing, rather than just logging a series of timestamps?" It made me reflect on how we, as humans, actually feel time passing beyond a mere sequence of events. What is that sensation? And how different is it really from what we imagine machines could experience or simulate?

    And while the "muchness" AI generates can be time-consuming or challenging to interpret, it still doesn't feel fundamentally different from talking or debating with humans. The ambiguity, the over-explanations, the tangents, and the need to clarify meaning all feels like part of the same continuum of understanding.



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    Jacob Daugherty
    Library Director
    Slippery Rock Community Library
    [he/him/his]