In A Day in the Life of Mr. D, Morgan (1992) describes a world with Mr. D, a "machine that was the size of a bread box with peripheral input-out devices ranging in size from a lapel pin to a chalkboard."
Morgan describes Mr. D as a librarian. Mr. D performs a myriad of tasks - analyzing numbers and figures, finding information, and anticipating the needs of his patrons.
Mr. D can even allow you to "feel" fabrics through the screen with the help of a glove. This sounds so futuristic but think again... ("touch"screens)
Mr. D in essence is Siri, except a little more advanced and refined. But I agree with Morgan when he further states that "Mr. D isn't really a librarian; he is merely a tool created by knowledge engineers" . I think it would be more apt to describe Mr. D as an omniscient personal assistant with strong research skills.
I think it is hard to envision Siri as a librarian - even though you can ask for definitions or information. But I do think that Siri or Mr. D or similar programs/AI will not affect the jobs of human librarians to a great extent as they follow a set of parameters and thus are unable to understand the idiosyncrasies of human beings. Morgan asserts that only human librarians have the ability to understand the intricacies and nuances of human behavior. An example of this is how Babelfish can translate a phrase into a different language and while it technically will be correct, oftentimes you can tell that it is from a translation application.
I think it is hard to envision Siri as a librarian - even though you can ask for definitions or information. But I do think that Siri or Mr. D or similar programs/AI will not affect the jobs of human librarians to a great extent as they follow a set of parameters and thus are unable to understand the idiosyncrasies of human beings. Morgan asserts that only human librarians have the ability to understand the intricacies and nuances of human behavior. An example of this is how Babelfish can translate a phrase into a different language and while it technically will be correct, oftentimes you can tell that it is from a translation application.
Dr. D or Siri can tell you what's the definition of a railway-share, but when it comes to analyzing the work - I think that they will fall short for quite a while. But when that eventually happens - it will be the equivalent of SparkNotes on steroids. I actually hope that said developments are excluded in any future innovations. Using a calculator to tally a sum is fine, but using a computer to provide the meaning to a poem or other literary work, seems wrong.
Morgan, E.L. (1992). A day in the life of Mr. D. In R. Miller &
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