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The AI Syllabus

This guide is designed to provide access to the concepts and resources comprising the AI Syllabus by Anne Kingsley and Emily Moss.

Archives and Archival Violence

Critical Inquiry: 

How does AI make use of the archive?

How does it assist in and/or disrupt archival practice?

Can new technologies reduce harm done by institutional systems? And/or do they inherently reproduce harm?

Sources

Archives and Archival Violence 

Sources: 

PBS NewsHour. (2017, January 2). Internet history is fragile. This archive is making sure it doesn’t disappear [Video]. Youtube.

  • A 9 min news report that serves as an explainer for the Wayback Machine, the visual search function of the Internet Archive, that allows users to access screen captures of pages from defunct or updated websites. #Practical

Chiang, T. (2023, February 9). ChatGPT is a blurry jpeg of the web. The New Yorker. 

  • In this article, Sci-fi author Chiang, uses the analogy of digital images to explain how large language models (LLMs) including ChatGPT function and why they hallucinate or otherwise approximate seemingly correct but compromised information. Chiang is ultimately making the case for not using GPT to write but his explanation is still a useful place to start in thinking and talking about GPT’s limitations (with students). #Practical #Philosophical

Internet Archive. (2023, May 2). Generative AI meets open culture. Archive.org

  • A 60 min video of a recorded panel discussion with expert representatives from Internet Archive, Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia), and Creative Commons. Topics covered include how Internet Archive (IA) is using AI to explore and improve their records, how generative AI can be fun and joyful, how Wikipedia editors are testing ChatGPT, how creative participation is changing, the limits of copyright, the tension between the intended public good of the Internet and the corporate motivations of most AI companies, etc. [Ed note: The closed captions aren’t the most accurate.] #Practical #Philosophical

Colavizza, G., Blanke, T., et al. (2022). Archives and AI: An overview of current debates and future perspectives. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 15(1), 1-15. #Practical 

 

Bergis, J. (2016, Nov. 11). Confronting our failure of care around the legacies of marginalized people in the archives. [Keynote presentation]. Medium. #Practical #Philosophical


freemyn, k.b. (2022). Expanding the Black archival imagination: Digital content creators and the movement to liberate Black narratives from institutional violence. In Burns-Simpson, S., Hayes, N.M., Ndumu, A., & Walker, S. (Eds.). The Black librarian in America: Reflections, resistance, and reawakening. [Available as an e-book through the DVC Library.] #Practical #Philosophical