Open For Whom? Access to Knowledge in the Age of AI

As artificial intelligence reshapes how information is created, accessed, and consumed, long-standing commitments to open knowledge are being tested in new and urgent ways. Publishers, libraries, and educators—many of whom have championed openness for decades—are now grappling with a difficult question: open for whom?

In this live discussion for the Future Knowledge podcast, we’ll explore the growing tension between access and control in the age of AI. Library infrastructure is under strain as large-scale data use accelerates. Publishers who once embraced openness are facing hard conversations with authors concerned about how their work is being used to train AI systems. At the same time, advocates of Open Educational Resources (OER) are navigating a paradox: wanting their materials to reach students widely, even as those same materials are absorbed by powerful commercial tools.

How do we address legitimate concerns about AI without abandoning the core principle of access to knowledge? What does it mean to sustain openness when the ecosystem around it has fundamentally changed? And how are students, researchers, and creators adapting as AI becomes an unavoidable part of how we learn and discover?

Join librarian Chris Bourg (MIT Libraries), educator Lisa Petrides (ISKME), and publisher Charles Watkinson (University of Michigan Press) for a timely, nuanced conversation at the front lines of one of the most important questions facing the future of knowledge.