On the human task of research

Below Rebecca wonders aloud about the future prospects of our species. Specifically if our place will be eclipsed by machines. I think this is an important and relevant questions for librarians to be engaging with.

In my experience, typically when someone suggests that human can be replaced by machines it is not b/c the machines are so great but because their few of humanity is so small. If research, for example, was only finding and evaluating information and then summarizing and arranging the data it is possible that machines could do all of that. But I think that misses the point of research.

I believe that research, on the one hand, should be about asking questions, specifically the creative, philosophical questions that only a human can ask. Beginning with the research problem, or thesis, the question asking continues as data is found and explored from different angles. Angles that are often most fruitful when they connect with our own stories and experiences. Posing philosophical questions, like appreciating sunsets is something that I think is crucial to being human and not the type of things that microchips can do meaningfully.

On the other hand, I think that research is a practice which bestows great rewards to the practitioner. To take on a research project is to embark on a quest to discover what you don't know. Along the way the researcher (hopefully) develops patience, diligence, and the ability to empathize with different points of view. It is likely that the development of these character traits is often more to be valued then the results of the research. Thus I think research can be understood as promoting virtue - helping us discover the good in a moral not mechanistic sense.

Unfortunately, I think the library profession does not do enough to highlight these aspects of research. It becomes easy for us to make finding more and better sources the focus of research often leaving the researcher so swamped with data that they have no time to ask meaningful questions and spend time simply pondering. Likewise, in our attempt to help make the process as efficient as possible we diminish the character building aspect of research. The final paper becomes more important than the practice. Research is just a hoop to jump through to get the degree and the more the process can be expedited the better. So much so that one wonders, can't a machine just do this so we don't have to be bothered.

There is a lot more that could be said on this topic. I know that if I were ever to assign a research project in the future, I would encourage students to spend more time with fewer texts hoping to encourage more thinking and less hunting for more and more data.