Symbiotic Intelligence: How A.I. May Create Cooperative Education in the Future

A recent publication in the World Economic Forum titled “The Future of Jobs” asserts that over 5 million jobs may be lost to robotization by the year 2020. YouTube channel CGP Grey, a channel that specializes in discussing various concepts in depth, has created a fascinating video discussing just how technological advances can outpace human efforts:

This video raises many intriguing - and possibly unanswerable - questions. For those of us working in the library space some of those questions might include

• How will robotization and digital intelligences affect the way library services are provided? 
• Where will the librarian fit in with all of this? 
• How will those people whose jobs have been phased out utilize a library? 

As CGP Grey’s video posits, digital entities capable of learning, interacting, and producing creative output can accomplish quite a lot. It’s conceivable that even this blog post could someday be written by a well-educated computer intelligence rather than the intern with a penchant for procrastination. That said, it’s entirely possible these advances could see the creation of more effective libraries, more effective librarians and all around more effective learning experiences.

The path to creating smarter, stronger and more capable machines lies in replicating our own psychological learning needs. The conundrum this presents is that the human learning process is an innumerable sum of different ethereal mental mechanisms.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg describes a bulk of these processes as "unsupervised learning." Zuckerberg has invested a great deal of time and capital into the development of artificial intelligence, making it one of Facebook, Inc.'s largest development projects.

In a recent Facebook status update about his aspirations for artificial intelligence development, Zuckerberg said, “Unsupervised learning is learning how the world works by observing and trying things out rather than being told what to do... It's key to building systems with human-like common sense because it doesn't require a person to teach it everything they know. It gives the machine the ability to anticipate what may happen in the future and predict the effect of an action. It could help us build machines that can hold conversations or plan complex sequences of actions... We fundamentally do not understand how general learning works... Until we solve this problem, throwing all the machine power in the world at it cannot create an AI that can do everything a person can.”

This is to say that the human mind is a vast, complex and unique thinking machine that cannot be defined by sheer horsepower. Understanding all of the mechanisms in which it learns is the key to not only the creation of artificial intelligence, but also more effective learning and teaching practices. A thinking machine can not only learn from human teachers, but also teach human learners.

Imagine the impact such an entity could have on a library. Makerspaces, writing labs, research, database optimization, all manner of workshops, all could see a dramatic overhaul of how they're performed, delivered and absorbed by they're audience.

As for the librarians, certain functions librarians perform such as the analyzing, management and acquisition of materials or information and data processing could foreseeably be delegated to thinking computers in the future, but the more human functions of librarians - those directly involved with enlightening and educating the users of the library - need not be replaced because such functions are best fostered by human relationships.

For example, people like to use Siri, but no one really respects Siri as a person. "She" is not a mentor, or a teacher, or a researcher or a friend. "She" doesn’t recognize her user’s learning process or where it might be stumbling, and can only provide feedback in the form of suggestions of what "she" believes they might have meant based on her programming. Digital intelligence may be able to replicate operational functions, but the human capacity for learning requires a set of intangible qualities. A machine capable of learning and teaching may enhance a human's education to a degree, but it takes a human to best understand a human.

What does the development of artificial intelligence mean to you? How do you foresee it affecting your role in the library? How will education utilize intelligent technologies? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Anne Kenney on "From Defining 21st Century Research Libraries to Implementing 21st Century Research Universities"

Library employees may find the slides from Anne Kenney's April 9 presentation (as well as the materials from our previous speakers) on the staff drive at U:LibraryFutures\.

Comments and questions on the presentations can be added to the comments section below.

Mark Sandler on "Building the Library of the Future, One Click at a Time"

Library employees may find the slides from Mark Sandler's Nov. 18 presentation (as well as the materials from our previous speakers) on the staff drive at U:LibraryFutures\.

Comments and questions on the presentations can be added to the comments section below.

Personality Types for Library Organizations: Part 5- Perceiving vs. Judging

post by Dan Chaney, Humanities and Social Sciences Division

Perceiving vs. Judging

Of the four dimensions, my favorite is without a doubt is this one, perceiving and judging. Judging and perceiving is the dimension that concerns itself with how we choose to live our lives – in either a very structured way or a very flexible open way.

First, let’s dispel a couple of stereotypes. When people hear this dimension is perceiving versus judging, the first assumption is that perceivers are people who are particularly perceptive or observant, and judgers are people who are judgmental. Not at all.

Judgers are people with a preference for living in an orderly, structured way and are happiest when their lives are structured and matters settled. Judgers love to make decisions and seek to control their lives (and sometimes the lives of others.) Judgers tend to see things in terms of black and white and they come down on one side or the other. They don’t like decisions that are left up in the air, in fact, decisions that aren’t settled actually can make judgers uncomfortable or cause them stress.

Perceivers, on the other hand, are folks that prefer to make decisions in an open ended fashion. And really, perceivers prefer not to make decisions at all. They love flexibility. They love to perceive options. They don’t like to make decisions because, let’s face it, something better might come along that they’d rather do so they’d just as soon not be pinned down on anything. Perceivers tend to hate day planners, calendars, to do lists, syllabi, etc. Forcing a perceiver to make a decision can actually cause them to feel stress.

So, why is this my favorite personality dimension? Background: I mentioned when you take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, it’ll give you a score and a strength of that score ranging from 0 to 40. I also mentioned that most people fall within the bell curve on MBTI scores for each dimension, meaning that most people fall within about 10 on the strength scale for any particular dimension. That is certainly true for me.  My Introvert score is a strength of 7, which means I could go either way, depending on how I answered a particular question. My Intuitor score was also a strength of 7. My Thinker score was also a strength of 7. With me so far? A score of 7 in these areas is pretty typical. My score as a Perceiver is a  39 out of 40, meaning there aren’t many people out there more of a perceiver than I am. In fact, I would class myself as an archetype Perceiver, there isn’t much Judger in me. I tell my students that if they are perceivers, I am their king.

Now, why is this dimension fun for me? This is one of the easiest dimensions to recognize in your coworkers, your friends, you partner, your children. Want to know how to tell if someone is a perceiver or judger? Look at their desk. Look inside their purse. Look inside their car. It’s true. If their desk/purse/car is messy they are a perceiver. If their desk/purse/car is neat as a pin, they are a judger. Now, you may be wondering why this is so. How can Dan be sure? Well, it’s in the nature of perceivers versus judgers. Think about it. Judgers like to make decisions, they like structure, it follows that their desks are neat and orderly. Perceivers hate making decisions, so we don’t like clearing our desks. The surest way for me to lose something is to put it away. Personally, it took me 10 years to file stuff in the filing cabinet in my office. I’ve filled one drawer with files, and haven’t opened the drawer in months. The other three drawers are full of stuff that isn’t files. If you ask a perceiver how we can find anything on our desk, we will tell you we know exactly where something is, we just won’t promise to be able to find it fast. We employ organization by stratigraphy, an archeological concept where the further down the pile, the older the item is.

Here is an example of Perceiver vs. Judger. 

Nicole is unquestionably a judger, she loves being organized and everything on her desk has its place. When I see Nicole’s desk, I have to fight the urge to take her stapler and turn it a quarter turn, because I suspect the first thing she’d do when she returns to her desk is turn her stapler back the right way.

 My desk, on the other hand, contains pens that have run out of ink because I dislike making decisions like throwing away a pen that is out of ink. As if might start working again later. There are piles of stuff that I am not working on at present, but might resume working on later, etc. You could turn the stapler around on my desk, but first you’d have to find it, and my reaction would be “I have a stapler on my desk?”

So, you may be wondering what the organizational strength is of a perceiver, considering we don’t like to make decisions. Well, think about it. Judgers love to make choices, but they find it hard to relax. Who loves to relax? Perceivers love to relax, but they have trouble making decisions. Perceivers and judgers need each other because the judgers run the risk of scheduling themselves so tightly that they become inflexible and dogmatic, while perceivers run the risk of procrastinating their lives away

	Judging	Perceiving
Librarians (N=1600)	66%	34%
Library Assistants (N=84)	64.29%	35.71%
University Faculty (N=2282)	65.91%	34.09%

Personality Types for Library Organizations: Part 4- Thinking vs. Feeling

Thinking vs. Feeling

I will admit, of all the dimensions, thinking/feeling is one of my favorite, but not for the reasons you might think (pardon the pun.) Thinking/feeling as a dimension gets at how we make decisions and come to conclusions.

Thinkers are people who prefer to make decisions logically, or that make sense, at least to them. Thinkers pride themselves in their ability to be analytical and objective in deciding things. They make decisions by analyzing and weighting evidence, even if that means coming to unpleasant conclusions.

Feelers, on the other hand make decisions based on how much they care or what they feel is right. They pride themselves on their ability to be empathic and compassionate. A feeler will weigh the evidence of a situation and make the choice that is best for the person or people involved, even when the evidence leads them to think another option might be better. They strive for harmony in their decisions.

The best way to illustrate the differences between thinkers and feelers in an organization is to pull an example of each from Star Trek. I’m hardly a Star Trek expert, but it does provide us archetypal examples of the dichotomy between thinkers and feelers. Star Trek fans already know where I’m going with this. Which Star Trek character was known for being logical, cold, aloof? The character of Spock was a thinker, making decisions based on weighing the evidence and making decisions even when that decision was uncomfortable. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, right? Which character was the opposite of Spock? Which character was known for his compassion? McCoy was constantly at odds with Spock over making decisions using logic over feelings. That is why they were so much fun to watch together – they were on opposite ends of the personality spectrum and that dichotomy is the gold mine of character development. But, that comparison isn’t what makes this dimension so interesting to me.

Let me set a scenario for you. Have you ever had a difference of opinion with your partner, husband, wife, girl/boyfriend? Have you ever had an argument where you were arguing to make a decision based on what it best for the person, while your significant other is arguing that your decision isn’t fair? At the end of that argument, your partner is in angry or in tears and you are wondering exactly what you said that was wrong? One of you is a feeler and the other is a thinker. The best example of this is arguments that occur between men and women. Research can tell us in scenarios such as this which of you is a feeler and which of you is the thinker. This dimension is fun for me because it is the only one that breaks along gender lines. Studies tell us that if you are a female, you tend to be a feeler, while if you are a male, you tend to be a thinker. Now, that is not an always, automatic thing. If you are a male and also a feeler, there’s nothing unusual about that, and conversely, if you’re a woman and a thinker, that’s not out of the ordinary. Remember, these are preferences, not absolutes.

Where am I on aligned along this dimension? I’m on the thinker side of things. When I was growing up as a child, I remember debates  with my parents over something not being fair to me, in particular, and I was always convinced my sisters were getting away with something because I was also an intuiter. Why was it not fair? Because my parents didn’t weigh the evidence the same as I did and (most likely) acted with compassion to one of my siblings. And that still kind of burns me up. Haha.

	Thinking	Feeling
Librarians (N=1600)	Men: 69% Women: 58%	Men: 31% Women: 42%
Library Assistants (N=84)	34.52%	65.48%
University Faculty (N=2282)	53.37%	46.63%
University Students (N=4035)	32.91%	67.09%
Females (N=32731)	34.60%	65.40%
Males (N=23240)	63.55%	36.45%

With respect to the table above:

·         I did flesh out librarians a little more with respect to differences between genders. You’ll notice that librarians tend to be thinkers, and even female librarians tend to be thinkers, but you will notice that male librarians are more decidedly thinkers than woman librarians.

·         You’ll notice that among men and women, they are almost the exact mirror of the other.

Personality Types for Library Organizations: Part 3- Sensing vs. Intuition

post by Dan Chaney, Humanities and Social Sciences Division

Sensing vs. Intuition

Sensing versus Intuition is a measure of how we take in information about the world around us.

Sensors absorb information via their five senses. That is, they take in what their senses reveal to them – sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. They tend to trust whatever can be measured or documented and focus on what is real and concrete. Sensors trust their five senses to give them accurate information about their environment, and they trust what their previous experience has taught them.  They tend to be focused on the here and now. A sensor will look at a given situation and try to figure out exactly what is going on.

Intuitors, on the other hand, are folks who seek out meanings, relationships and possibilities based on gut hunches, rather than the facts themselves. You could say intuitors trust their “sixth sense” more than what their five senses tell them. Intuitors naturally read between the lines and look for meanings between those lines. Unlike sensors, intuitors trust their inspirations and hunches. Intuitors are adept at anticipating the future and generally try to make things different rather than maintaining the status quo. An intuitor will look at a situation and want to know what it means and what the consequences are.

In terms of their value to the organization, sensors and intuitors work well together. Sensors are the folks who are really good at reading the evidence on the surface of any situation, and they are pretty good at pointing to what is causing a problem. Intuitors are really good at getting below the surface and determining what is really influencing that situation. Intuitors are people who trust their gut hunches, so they sometimes lack the patience or habit to evaluate their sensory data. Intuitors need to be surrounded by sensors in organizations to give as complete a picture of a situation as possible. The flip side of the equation is that sensors working without intuitors to balance their information input will occasionally get it wrong.

Sensors and intuitors are easy to pick out of a crowd if you know what to look for. In meetings, sensors are taking notes because that is how they absorb information. Intuitors are the folks listening, and who might be perceived as being unengaged. That is not the case, they are engaged looking (listening) below the surface and drawing connections between the lines. A sensor and an intuitor will experience a situation and if you ask them to recount it, will often give very different interpretations. Have you ever talked to a friend after a presentation or meeting and when they said something about the meeting, it makes you say “Wow, what meeting were you at?” It’s probably because one of you is a sensor and the other is an intuitor.

I come in on the intuitor side of this dimension, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows me. I am really good at reading people and acting on my gut hunches, which more often than not are right. If you are, like me, an introverted intuitive, that is a fun combination in terms of personality type. Introverts generally are deep thinkers, and when you combine it with introversion, that means we can get to the bottom of what is really going on in most cases, meaning we are really good at coming up with solutions.

So, how do you align with others in the Sensor/Intuitor dimension?

	Sensing	Intuition
Librarians (N=1600)	41%	59%
Library Assistants (N=84)	65.48%	34.52%
University Faculty (N=2282)	36.06%	63.94%
University Students (N=4035)	55.39%	44.61%
Females (N=32731)	56.38%	43.62%
Males (N=23240)	54.77%	45.23%

Comments:

·         It should not be a surprise that librarians tend to be intuitors – the nature of research and reference work is one of following your gut hunches to find the correct or best answer.

·         Library staff tend to be the exact opposite of librarians in this dimension. That’s the strength of the organization, though. Remember, sensors are really good at seeing what is going on the surface and the intuitors are strong in making connections to what is really going on below the surface.

·         Faculty tend to be even more so intuitors than librarians. That does not surprise me.

·         Interesting juxtaposition between faculty and students. And that is largely because students in college have not necessarily learned critical thinking skills. We see this every day at the reference desk, when we help students with a research question and they expect there to be a “magic article” – one article that tells them exactly what the answer to the question is. Unfortunately, there are seldom magic articles in research.

·         Males and females are very similar in terms of sensing7/intuition.