Generative artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT are transforming how people interact with information, with significant implications for information literacy. Using ChatGPT and similar tools as information retrieval challenges many core ideas of information literacy, as it generates often quite adequate topic overviews, while claiming neither copyright nor any authority other than having been trained on a huge corpus of texts.
While this disruption is unique, it is not unprecedented. Twenty-five years ago, general purpose web search engines blurred formats and authorship on the Web, which itself had just reached a critical mass to make it a worthwhile starting point for general information needs. A few years later, Wikipedia explicitly challenged traditional notions of expertise. How librarians, and others interested in information literacy, responded to these tools, both in terms of how they thought about they discussed them among themselves and how they addressed them while teaching information literacy, can help us anticipate and understand our reactions to the use of AI today.
In this paper, I review the historical scholarly and trade literature, as well as less formal sources such as social media and email listservs, for discussions of Wikipedia, Google, and earlier dominant search engines as new tools that impact information literacy, looking for themes and approaches that might inform our response to ChatGPT and similar tools.
Broadly speaking, early analysis shows three broad categories of responses:
- Reinforcing, in other words, incorporating Wikipedia and Google into the pre-existing models of information behavior. For example, presenting Wikipedia as an encyclopedia that you might use to initially learn about a topic, but would not cite as a source.
- Rejecting or taking the stance that Google or Wikipedia are not appropriate tools and should not be used. For example, emphasizing the questionable quality of information in these sources.
- Revolutionizing or exploiting features of the tool that allow for new ways of engaging with information literacy. For example, presenting editing Wikipedia as a low stakes opportunity for learners to engage with concepts of scholarship as conversation, authority, and so on.
I discuss the strengths and weaknesses of all three responses, considering both the benefits of hindsight as well as the implications for how we approach artificial intelligence and other future disruptive tools.
David A. Hurley
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA
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