Although it is generally thought that creating a banned books list is fairly recent, the first banned book can be traced back to the 1600s, when the first Puritans became colonized. Simply enough, a man named Thomas Morton wrote a book about the indigenous people of the land, flora and fauna, and even goods to sell. The main message of the piece, however, was to inform his readers of his views on the Puritans’ beliefs (which were not very positive). Because Morton challenged the foundation the other colonizers built, his work was considered threatening.
Today is not so much different than Thomas Morton writing about the injustice of horrible treatment to the Native Americans, with people trying to filter what their children read in libraries and school systems. Many parents want to steer their children away from what is considered controversial or even divisive, but the reality is that these parents cannot hide their children from reality and the challenges that life will throw at them. Books with topics that are uncomfortable or have questionable language should not be taken away from every child just because one parent doesn’t want theirs to be exposed to it.
Readers are not just in danger of not being able to read the books they want because of parents, but also because of AI as well. ChatGPT is making an enemy out of itself by helping schools and parents decide which books to ban, based on how inappropriate they seem. Notice the word “seem” is written instead of “are”. As AI is technology, and therefore created and coded to only generate things based on what it knows, it is often incorrect. Even though AI sounds intelligent when it spits out answers to your questions, it is incapable of critical thought. When it searches for books to ban, the only thing it does is find specific pieces in the text that it deems lewd.
The American Library Association made a claim stating that 2022 was the year for the most attempted times to ban books, dating back to the last century. What’s sad is that people may not know much about the book they want to ban, but they like banning the idea it represents. Some parents at school board meetings even go as far as reading passages out of context, only showing one side of the book. High school advocate Riley Kellogg states, “Although there might be something in a book that some people don’t want there to be, the books ultimately have a message”. Even if there is something someone doesn’t agree with, others should still be able to have access to it. Just because someone else is opposed to an idea, does not mean that it should be taken away from everyone else.
Readers, such as you and me, should be able to have access to as much reading material as we want, and not have to worry over something that someone else doesn’t like. Ultimately, it is up to the reader whether they want to crack open that book or not. Even telling young people that they should not read a certain material holds no value, because the first thing they are going to want to do is go against that statement. By gaining an understanding in what we read, how something is or came to be, then others will have a hard time trying to convince you otherwise, pushing you to see something different. By trying to get rid of books, no matter how suggestive the material, those that try to oppress are only opposed to others being inspired and gaining knowledge from their reading.
As AI is being used to find books that may be too explicit and inappropriate to high school students, it never considers anything other than what the user is specifically asking. If a parent asks if a book has a sex scene, or something of the like, it will find a scene in the text where this is shown and relay the information. What it does not consider is the context and meaning behind the scenes it is choosing. For parents and those that want to keep books away from their children, this is the way to bring mass censorship to school districts.
Considering that parents and their children can access these books from bookstores, libraries, and even online, trying to ban books is only harming the surrounding community. Limiting a child in what they read hinders them from gaining insight from teachable moments. It prevents them from figuring out who they are as people and learning about the people around them. For example, a young teacher was fired from her school when she read the book My Shadow is Purple to her students. What people trying to ban these books don’t realize is that in what a child reads, they are gaining knowledge about the world around them. After reading the book to her students, Katie Rinderle engaged them to write their own “shadow peoms” to see their takeaway from the book. Associate Professor Roberta Price Gardner found this frustrating, as she could see that each reader gains a unique perspective from what they read.
Not only is this ban a struggle for parents, students, teachers, and the community alike, but it is also a struggle for the authors that write these books as well. Although some would argue that banning a book would actually raise sales, in reality it is hurting these authors’ careers. A vast majority of these writers think back to their childhoods and what they did not have access to read when they were growing up. As we now live in an age where any type of book could be possible, parents are banning books, denying children any opportunity to read the books they are curious or want to read about. Deborah Caldwell-Stone says that it’s within a parents’ right to choose what their kids read, but that, “no one group, no one parent should dictate what’s available for other families”.
Furthermore, people who are banning books are not looking at the bigger picture when they target these texts. Parents only see the obscenity within the book, but they never see the message that it is trying to convey. Children should be able to read about a book where a character looks like them (pertaining to books that have been banned for race and racism) and learn the history of our country. Our history is going to have unsavory topics because what is being read actually happened. If we want to understand how America got where it is today, reading about slavery, oppression, death, and gender inequalities are inevitably going to come up. Parents and children today are overly sensitive to history that has been made hundreds of years ago. Two students, after being assigned Between the World and Me, said that it made them feel guilty for being White, and consequently cancelled the teacher’s lesson. Parents and children alike need to learn that the central message of a book does not mean that it relates directly to them, or that it should be completely written out of curriculum.
Equally important, ChatGPT seems to have a natural dislike for anything original or creative. It has also been known to generate things based off bias, which obscures a clear view of the situation. It can certainly not understand the state of the world we are in, simply because it is not a living, breathing being. It deduces things based on what has already been written and does not have an individual thought process. Books with LGBTQ, anti-police, gender, and race issues are often targeted for bans because of an out-of-context assumption that avoids looking at the bigger picture. When helping people with an agenda to eradicate a book from school systems, the only thing it is looking for is specific to the question, not what the intent of the book is.
By working to get banned books back into students’ hands, and back on library shelves, many organizations have been working to give students the chance to read what they want without having to worry about someone essentially ripping their choice away. One such organization, Unite Against Book Bans, summarizes that books are tools for understanding complex issues, and that banning is causing more harm than good. Another program called PEN America stands by helping people to protect open expression, including their right to their choice in literature. By standing up for the reading material we want to see and invalidating AI technology, eventually it will bring banning to a standstill, one book at a time.
Citations
Andrew, Scottie. “Book Bans Are Surging – and Taking an Emotional Toll on Many Authors.” CNN, Cable News Network, 4 Oct. 2023, www.cnn.com/2023/10/04/style/book-bans-sales-authors-impact-cec/index.html.
Flannery, Mary Ellen. “Katie Rinderle Is Not Alone.” NEA, NEA [National Education Association], 3 Aug. 2023, www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/katie-rinderle-not-alone?utm_medium=paid-search&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=editoral_alwayson&utm_content=&ms=ads-katierinderlebooks-se&gad=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5N-b1f7ogQMVOvSUCR3aKQQhEAMYASAAEgK01_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds.
Klimek, Chris. “A Brief History of Banned Books in America.” Smithsonian.Com, Smithsonian Institution, 5 Oct. 2023, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-banned-books-in-america-180983011/.
Reeve, Elle, and Samantha Guff. “Children and Parents Begin Uphill Fightback against Book Bans in Florida.” CNN, Cable News Network, 6 Oct. 2023, www.cnn.com/2023/10/06/us/florida-banned-books/index.html.
“Unite against Book Bans.” Unite Against Book Bans, American Library Association, 13 Oct. 2023, uniteagainstbookbans.org/.
“Using Artificial Intelligence to Ban Books Only Makes the Problem Worse.” PEN America, PEN America, 17 Aug. 2023, pen.org/press-release/pen-america-using-artificial-intelligence-to-ban-books-only-makes-the-problem-worse/.
Watercutter, Angela. “How an Iowa School District Used Chatgpt to Ban Books.” Wired, Conde Nast, 18 Aug. 2023, www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-ban-books-iowa-schools-sf-496/#:~:text=Under%20a%20new%20law%2C%20schools,The%20Handmaid%27s%20Tale%20and%20Beloved.