{"id":51,"date":"2026-10-13T22:44:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T22:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/thetransparentlabyrinth\/?p=51"},"modified":"2026-10-13T22:44:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T22:44:32","slug":"prompting-towards-pepperland-human-enabled-ai-as-community-hyperlink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/thetransparentlabyrinth\/2026\/10\/13\/prompting-towards-pepperland-human-enabled-ai-as-community-hyperlink\/","title":{"rendered":"Prompting Towards Pepperland: Human-Enabled AI as Community Hyperlink"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
Mark Spusta .(2015). Pepperland [screen print].<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The need for hyperlinked communities, to openly interface, to draw community together in informational communion, is the very substance at the core of LIS practice: not just connecting disparate communities internally and from afar, but preserving and providing free access to the endless modes of human creation \u2014 works made for and by the very same greater human community. Terry Cook, the Canadian archivist, in his 2012 article for Archival Science<\/em>, \u201cEvidence, Memory, Identity, and Community: Four Shifting Archival Paradigms<\/a>,\u201d describes how the transformation of the archivist into a \u201ccommunity facilitator\u201d has met the \u201cdigital realities\u201d and is opening wide alternative horizons. He writes:<\/span><\/p>\n

The archivist has been transformed, accordingly, from passive curator to active appraiser to societal mediator to community facilitator. The focus of archival thinking has moved from evidence to memory to identity and community, as the broader intellectual currents have changed from premodern to modern to postmodern to contemporary. Community archiving and digital realities offer possibilities for healing these disruptive and sometimes conflicting discourses within our profession.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The newest form these \u201cdigital realities\u201d have taken is Artificial Intelligence (AI), an exacting tool that is helping to offload non-human tasks. Ideally<\/a>, greater focus can be redirected toward the humanness of our communities, into leisure activities and educational forums for personal and community growth. There will be an expanding need for meaningful community experiences as free time increases through the outmoding of jobs that no longer need humans to accomplish them. This ideal is not all Pepperland<\/a>; there be Blue Meanies<\/a> here too. Unfortunately, the genie that is AI has already left her bottle and is granting wishes willy-nilly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Barbara Eden as Jeannie. (1965-70). I Dream of Jeannie. [television series].<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Dr. Lili Luo\u2019s 2025 study<\/a> on the daily use of Generative AI (GAI) by library professionals showed that 66.5% of respondents use GAI and find it effective in improving efficiency and work quality. Their top three concerns were, first and foremost, the inaccuracy of the model\u2019s outputs (41% of respondents); second, ethical risks regarding security and privacy (25.7% of respondents); and third, difficulty in composing effective prompts (21% of respondents). \u00a0Along with these daily concerns, keep in mind this new technology\u2019s environmental footprint coupled with the inherent bias ready-built into AI models\u2019 ground-truth training, via a lack of diverse identities among the models\u2019 original trainers and in the data they were fed \u2014 data based on works that are the human canon and carry all the fear and beauty represented there. There also is a need for creator compensation and usage rights, for which library science already has modes of mitigation through established frameworks, like licensing, fair use, and attribution, that can help guide towards fair remedies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 There will be a need for designing alternative, creative workflows to help in building community events and paths for individual self-improvement. In the past, self-directed community-based activities were primarily practiced by artists and artisans, farmers and contemplatives, both spiritual and philosophic, in media physical, in mediums electric. When more people are freed from the existential strictures of their day-to-day survival needs, the practice of integrating life and imagination, apart from work for work\u2019s sake, will be crucial. With the freedom at scale that AI can enable, the influence of creative innovation won\u2019t be restricted to the unworried wealthy and the starving artists, and that freedom will change the meaning of what is expressed. Hopefully, the proliferation of creative self- and community-based workflows can inform lifestyles that help ameliorate AI\u2019s deleterious effects.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 As Michael Stephens said in his lecture for Hyperlinked Communities, \u201cEverything you do should involve your users every step of the way.\u201d<\/a> AI\u2019s shocking gains in the intelligence and fluidity of information delivery are already making it much easier to connect with current and potential users to discover their needs and move forward as a humane community that becomes its own motile third place of pure imagination<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n