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The recent headline, “School District Uses ChatGPT to Help Remove Library Books,” has stirred up a whirlwind of emotions among bibliophiles. The Mason City Community School District, guided by artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, has purged 19 titles from its library shelves, including renowned works like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
This move, while controversial, is a response to the educators’ struggle to adhere to ambiguous laws regarding “age-appropriate” books that feature “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.” The catalyst for this action is Iowa’s SF 496, a “parental rights” bill enacted by Governor Kim Reynolds in May. This legislation, similar to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, aims to restrict discussions of sexuality and gender identity in schools.
The Mason City School District’s assistant superintendent, Bridgette Exman, in a statement to the Mason City Globe Gazette, expressed the impracticality of scrutinizing every book to ensure compliance with these new requirements. This situation presents a unique dilemma. Broad prohibitions on sexual content using nebulous terms like “age-appropriate” already create interpretive challenges. Now, in Iowa, an AI tool, which may not fully grasp the subtleties of written language, is being tasked with interpreting a law that is inherently lacking in nuance.
The process involves the school district querying ChatGPT about whether a specific book contains a description or depiction of a sex act. A positive response leads to the book’s removal from the library. However, this binary approach can lead to complications. For instance, the Bible, which addresses sexual topics and relationships without explicit descriptions of sexual acts, was not included in the list of banned books.
This example underscores the potential for confusion in this process. Exman recounts similar experiences, where ChatGPT identified sexual depictions in a book but also provided context. She cites Patricia McCormick’s Sold, a story about a young girl sold into prostitution, as an example. While ChatGPT’s response could be characterized as a “Yes, but” answer, the law doesn’t accommodate for such nuances. Consequently, McCormick’s book is among the 19 titles removed from the district’s library.
