pervasive use for all of us to focus R&D on things that matter, on national and international priorities.
I applaud the Government’s strategic commitment to AI including the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, commitment to digital skills and media literacy, developing top AI talent and upskilling the nation with its portfolio of online AI training. Similarly, its recent consultation on “growing up in the online world” initiated a national conversation. Perhaps that conversation should embrace priorities for the targeted and regulated utilisation of AI in areas like education, biomedical science, healthcare, education, finance and law.
I was recently discussing UKeiG’s popular course Generative AI and Retrieval Augmented Generation for librarians, information and knowledge professionals with a UKeiG colleague. It is led by Andrew Cox and Suvodeep Mazumdar, both senior lecturers at the School of Information, Journalism and Communication, University of Sheffield. It complements UKeiG’s course, Artificial intelligence for librarians, information and knowledge professionals, which focuses on general AI fundamentals and key organisational strategies.
June-July 2026
Both courses are ideal for any library, information and knowledge professional interested in developing an understanding of Generative AI as it applies to their work or is involved in promoting AI competencies.
My colleague was lamenting the poor quality of AI outputs and referenced the issue of Large Language Model (LLM) training data and information quality – GIGO – garbage in, garbage out. Andrew Cox commented that “Generative AI has arguably made finding and using information easier, but its reliability is questionable. There are many ethical issues around its training and its wider social and environmental impact.” Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) offers to partly address these issues by enabling the integration of AI technology with a responsibly curated collection of relevant content to increase the reliability of its outputs. RAG will enable experts across the library and information community to determine the quality and reliability of AI outputs. However, even expertise is under threat.
Somebody recently referenced “the death of the expert”, that years of accumulated knowledge and expertise could be reduced to ashes by AI. There was discussion at the Hay Festival 2026
about the “AI convenience culture”. Comedian and actor Tim Minchin made the pertinent and insightful observation that we are “conveniencing [ourselves] into meaninglessness”, passively embracing AI regardless of its impact. A recent Observer newspaper editorial was brilliantly entitled Artificial Stupidity. “AI is duping humans into thinking that thinking doesn’t matter. The world is losing its mind to artificial intelligence. AI is a transformative technology; it’s not a magical power. It’s time to call out those falling under its spell.” Perhaps it is time to reflect, to re-boot and to encourage the prioritised use of AI while we can.
I end with John Naughton’s cloud metaphor. The “weightless myth” about digital tech, where “its genius is the way it has inverted reality. After all, a cloud in the real world is the visible condensation of water vapour – the moment when something invisible becomes briefly visible. But in computing, the cloud does the exact opposite. It makes the deeply physical invisible by associating it with something intangible.” Now, there’s a great library school exam question. Discuss. IP
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