When To Use (Or Not Use) AI

Meeting Room 1. The rapid development of AI tools and applications over the past few years is difficult to fully comprehend, even for people proficient in its technical underpinnings. More important than the minutiae of AI tools, however, is a more fundamental question: when is it appropriate (or inappropriate) to use AI in the first place? It is by no means an easy dilemma, and there is no “one size fits all” approach by any means. Yet this presentation will endeavor to present a set of strategies which can be utilized to determine if AI usage would work best for you. To demonstrate this, AI researcher Jacob Adler will take cues from several sources, including test cases both anecdotal and documented. He will draw upon resources tested by academic professionals interacting with the “AI quandary,” and will consider the suitability of AI usage by several factors, including ease of use, effectiveness, ethics, and scale. The intended outcome is to provide attendees with a foundation that will help them formulate their own decision-making process about AI, and become better-informed users (or perhaps skeptics) thereof. Jacob Adler is the Cataloging and Metadata Librarian at the Lloyd Sealy Library at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. A career librarian for over 10 years, he has been involved with several AI-centric initiatives, including as a representative in the nationwide 2025-2026 American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) AI Institute, helping to advise about AI policy and standards. His other research interests include science-fiction, history (in particular media history), tabletop role-playing games, and media literacy.