Open PDF in Browser: Natalie Tiggleman,† Foreword
The library will endure; it is the universe. As for us, everything has not been written; we are not turning into phantoms. We walk the corridors, searching the shelves and rearranging them, looking for lines of meaning amid leagues of cacophony and incoherence, reading the history of the past and our future, collecting our thoughts and collecting the thoughts of others, and every so often glimpsing mirrors, in which we may recognize creatures of the information.[1]
Luis Borges’ famous short story “The Library of Babel”[2] imagines a library containing every book that could be written—endless gibberish and all possible truths. Inhabitants there search for meaning among the chaos but are driven to despair. Inherent chaos will never contain a unifying message.
As the articles within this Issue explain, artificial intelligence (AI) presents us with a similar, maddening potential. In his keynote, Professor Surden explains that AI has the power to draw upon a wealth of human knowledge to draft any conceivable argument. And, with the right keystroke, AI can craft hundreds of contradictory arguments from any angle. He and Professor Coan apply this conclusion to constitutional interpretation and admonish us all against searching for Truth within AI’s controlled chaos. Professors Goodman and Arbel each add to this warning—exploring the consequences of relying on advisors without sentience.
I had the pleasure of introducing the AI and Privacy panel at the Rothgerber Symposium on AI and the Constitution. Through the discussions that followed, I witnessed an antidote to AI’s daunting infinity: Rather than get lost, the scholars bumped shoulders and built new ideas with AI. They reminded me that scholars, not their tools, are the authors of our future. From author to editor to reader, AI provides unprecedented potential. As the authors of this Issue highlight, if we understand its power and perils, AI can be the ultimate tool to push scholarship, and our world, forward.
I am incredibly grateful for the work of our authors, editors, and collaborators in making this Symposium Issue a success. To our readers, I hope you enjoy the insights within this Issue. Without them, we might get lost in the library.
† While not editors or direct contributors, I would like to personally express my appreciation for my family for their unwavering support. To Reem: my love, my guide, my strength—thank you. You carried me through the stress, the late nights and the exhaustion to get where I am today. My successes are as much yours as they are mine.
- James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood 426 (2011) (applying Jorge Luis Borges’ Library of Babel concept to the 21st century). ↑
- Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel, in Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings 54 (James E. Irby and Donald A. Yates eds., 1962). ↑