Collaboration Starved: Hello, Chatbot? I’d Like to Speak With a Human Please

“AI and information verification and truthfulness, all of that is something we as a society need to be super careful about.”

– Denis Frias, Senior Librarian at Hazel McCallion Central Library

What really happened to the Library of Alexandria? These are the theories. | National Geographic

In the third century BC, The Great Library of Alexandria was built to be a central common and capital for scholarly learning and information. It was home to many different subject matters, ranging from literature, drama, and poetry to mathematics, physics, geography, and astronomy. And while the Library is most known for its mysterious burning and destruction, it is also known for exuding power through knowledge, making the city of Alexandria, Egypt, a place of smart collaboration and prestigious thinking. In the 21st century, libraries have continued to sustain a reputation as a place for learning and sharing knowledge in collaboration. But the thirst for knowledge and discovery of information has changed, making libraries a seemingly outdated source for referencing materials. Curiosity has become a codependent inquisition with the internet, a place where searching can be done in a matter of seconds, most times without questioning a source’s reliability. And with Artificial Intelligence (AI) being integrated into almost all aspects of online searching, the push for new online technology by companies like OpenAI and ChatGPT are adamant on being the solution to the annoyance of what can be endless searching. But what if the shortcut to unbearable searching isn’t all the glamour it claims to be? AI companies, along with their partners in social media, champion AI’s ability to successfully and accurately be a source of learning and information, from historical inquiries to financial advice to medical diagnosis. But notably, its accuracy is dissimilar to the truth, making AI a questionable and unreliable source. With people putting more trust into searching for a forum of uncertainty and fraud, participation in interactive learning and social interactions has declined, and a population of collaboration-starved humans has increased.

Artificial Intelligence V.S. Actual Intelligence

In a study published by the National Library of Medicine, professionals working in psychological and neurological studies researched how short-term internet searching makes the brain codependent on internet search engines for information. Participants were asked to search forty unfamiliar questions over the span of six days of search training, and found the training changed neural circuits in parts of the brain that constitute decision making and complex reasoning. Furthermore, the research also proved there was a decrease in brain activity in the middle frontal gyrus, a key role in literacy development and memory. While the internet offers a great benefit of making searching accessible from wherever you are in the world, this study helps prove how such gratification upon seeking immediate validation from the internet results in humans becoming less confident in their own ability to recall, memorize, and participate in finding primary resources. 

In an article written by The Harvard Gazette, science and tech professionals were prompted to talk about whether AI is dulling our minds. Principal research scientist Tina Grotzer explains how the human mind is actually more powerful than AI and how continuous use of the technology is dismantling our own brain’s capabilities to make intuitive and strategic  decisions. Grotzer even says our minds are greater than the Bayesian model of decision making (a model that supposedly provides optimal solutions to ongoing problems) when referencing her own study of how kindergarteners used strategic information when playing a game. She observed that whenever the game required the kindergarteners to make informed moves or quick judgements, their brains innately carried the technological systems that drive our human abilities to investigate. In the same article, senior lecturer in public policy Dan Levy agrees with the sentiment that AI is not good for learning when students only view what they learn as a crutch to gain an output. He reminds us that learning is not about the end result, that if someone truly wants to learn, then using AI as a way to get results is ineffective and will lessen the experience. He also points out a common confusion between learning and obtaining answers: how “the assignment is not the ultimate goal” but the process of doing the work that makes us more productive with the task at hand.

In another study by the National Library of Medicine, psychology and neurology professionals explored the role of social interaction in human acquisition of new knowledge. The study sought to find out if human interaction in learning is necessary by observing the three different types of learning: observation learning, imitation learning, and interactive learning. Observation learning occurs when attention is on the teacher delivering the information; in imitation learning, attention is also brought to the teacher, but it also involves active performance. However, between observation learning and imitation learning, there is no need for human interaction at all. For instance, these two techniques can be done via pre-recorded video without the opportunity for the learner to respond to the teacher in real time, but when it comes to interactive learning, a real-time response is required, and reciprocity is an active component. Interactive learning and social interaction specialize in feedback and allowance for redirection, which is what this study concludes is “crucial for optimal cognitive and brain development.”

These studies showcase that AI and the internet will never be equal to or replace the prospects of human collaboration or the human brain’s ability to discover, create, and solve. While this may be obvious, it is crucial to reiterate in a time when AI developers and social media corporations continue to propagate the idea that their technology is an unmatchable phenomenon that connects humans better than before or is the “future of corporate leadership,” as the company's AI CEO claims in their slogan. 

When we hear these claims, it can lead us to believe there’s no other future our society is headed towards. You’ve heard the phrase “work with it, not against it”; it’s the same forced inevitability that Hannah Einbinder’s character, Ava Daniels, reacts to on the popular drama Hacks. In season 5 episode 6, her character is being told to get over AI and just work with it because it’s only getting better, but Einbinder’s character retaliates by saying, “You don't give people a choice. So you just say, ‘Oh, the train is already on the tracks,’ and you don’t let people decide for themselves.” Her character goes on to question why people should even believe AI is so amazing when these companies are the only ones who profit from it, a very true and relevant sentiment. Hacks writer Jenny Statsky also made comments about AI in her interview on the On With Kara Swisher podcast about how the goal of constant optimization leaves us with nothing. She explains an idea similar to Levy’s about how having technology “solve problems” for you removes the joy of the creative process. Statsky emphasizes how experience inspires creation: “The grist and the struggle and the friction- it’s what makes art good.”

The Diaspora Between Social Media and Social Interaction

Along with AI’s damage to our memory and its attack on our brain’s confidence in decision-making, social media is an equal culprit contributing to the collapse of society’s physical interactivity. Applications like Instagram and TikTok have become huge platforms for people to stalk and judge their peers and strangers in the comfort of never having to actually speak or interact with a person/people in real life. While the initial motive behind social media was meant for sharing photos with friends (supposedly), it’s now become a way for people to perfectly curate an online avatar of themselves that exists only on the internet. But with all the perfectionism and no flaws, self-comparison and anxiety is the highest it’s ever been amongst a generation that’s ended with young people’s preference for avoiding in-person interactions.

In a study published by the International Journal of Advances in Engineering and Management, Doctors Sanjay Payasi and Vikas Jain dove into the effects of social media on young people’s social skills and interactions. Through a series of interviews and structured surveys for a sample of 600 participants aged 13-19 from the U.S., U.K., and India, Payasi and Jain based their study on what’s known as the Social Learning Theory, a theory that posits humans learn through observation. In one of the analyses, four different types of online interactions were scored for their negative social impact on youth (5.2); Superficial Conversations, Social Comparison, Conflict and Misunderstanding, and Positive Interactions. In the results of the analysis, Superficial Conversations and Social Comparison scored a level of “high” and “very high” negative impact, while conflict and positive interactions both scored a “moderate” negative impact. Additionally, Payasi and Jain conducted a regression analysis (5.3) on youth’s social skills, where they compared the frequency of social media use to exposure to superficial interactions. This analysis predicted a significant decrease in social skills, which confirms how high levels of digital interaction can negatively impact young people’s abilities to communicate effectively. Furthermore, to solidify the evidence of social media’s negative impact on youth, Payasi and Jane gathered quotes (5.5) from their participants and summarized their assessment into three sections: Reduced Face-to-Face Interaction, Difficulty in Conflict Resolution, and Positive Online Support. This assessment concluded that youth reported greater difficulty with in-person socializing because of social media and unresolved conflicts when digital communication was used.

How to Escape the Zeitgeist

In a day when interconnected personal relationships are becoming lost to an explosive and overwhelming era of AI and social media, it’s drawn many people who are frustrated with the tech to seek places that welcome and invite people to be a part of society in an interactive, social way. Libraries, like the late Great Library of Alexandria, are still a steadfast service for providing the public with the opportunity to learn and collaborate with people from different backgrounds, educations, and ideas. Arguably, because online technology has become such a central part of daily life, libraries are seemingly becoming less popular, and visiting the library can be a retro idea to Gen Z and Gen Alpha. But as proven by the studies above, it’s important not to let our brains succumb to the temptation of immediate optimization and online gratification.

Senior librarian, Denis Frias, who specializes in local history and genealogy at Mississauga’s Hazel McCallion Central Library (HMCL), shared with me his ideas about AI, “you have to know where you’re getting your information from, you have to be aware of what’s behind it in terms of any kind of agenda [...] AI and information verification and truthfulness, all of that is something we as a society need to be super careful about.” Frias also explains that from a librarian’s viewpoint, it’s frustrating to know that people would rather consult an online replicant of a real-life interaction that can just as well or even better be achieved at public libraries. His sentiment as a professional information gatherer comes from appreciating the purpose of public libraries, which he avidly notes is to simply collaborate with the peers in your community, “the library is an equalizer when it comes to accessing modern technology and making books and information free to people. A collection has a balanced use for all sorts of things where people can see different perspectives and become open to ideas.” And while not every interaction at the library requires interactive commerce, surrounding yourself with people in a communal space supports interactive learning. 

Libraries are the few third spaces that are left where shared ideas and interactive learning are encouraged, but in addition to libraries, great ways to gather within your community can include things people may do more on a daily basis such as going to the gym, going on walks with your friends, attending book clubs, going to a coffee shop, or evening engaging in your own “screen free” day/night. But to further extend your admiration toward collaboration and gathering information on your own, it’s important to resist AI and social media by eliminating or redirecting their use.

In Conclusion…

The rise of Artificial Intelligence has been around as a topic of discussion for a long time now. It’s been represented in movies like I, Robot (2004), WALL-E (2008), and Blade Runner (1982), and has been a feature in dystopian novels such as Feed by M.T. Anderson. But what’s been known as fiction is very rapidly becoming a reality and slowly infiltrating our neurological and cognitive development. The isolation that comes with optimizing every piece of effort we put towards art, learning, teaching, and the general doing of things is damaging to what should be a human’s basic capability of life. Thus, it’s important that people gather and share and be together; otherwise, the reason for the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria will always remain a mystery, and the art of community may cease to exist.