Now Republicans Are Using AI To Ban Books in Iowa Schools

Artificial intelligence is being utilized to enforce book-banning legislation recently passed in Iowa by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. On May 26, 2023, Senate File 496 was passed in Iowa, “prohibiting instruction related to gender identity and sexual orientation in school districts, charter schools, and innovation zone schools in kindergarten through grade six.” The discriminatory bill bans any discussion of the LGBTQ+ community or identities from classrooms through sixth grade and also requires teachers to report students’ requests regarding preferred names or pronouns to administrators. Of course, the bill isn’t just going after classroom instruction but also the resources available to students.

The bill stipulates that districts must provide a “detailed explanation” on their websites of how parents can request the removal of a book from a classroom or school library, and that the identities of parents making such requests must be kept “confidential.” Meanwhile, it also demands that all materials in the classroom and library be “age-appropriate” and cannot include any sexual content. The bill only vaguely defines non-age-appropriate books as those including descriptions of a “sex act.”

This is a very typical content-banning tactic from conservatives, who broadly define anything related to sex as inappropriate and use it as an excuse to ban books. While the bill is already vague enough to raise concerns about the titles that could be banned under it, even more concerning is that the school districts are now relying on AI to comb through books for inappropriate content.

School districts use AI for book-banning compliance

As reported by Rolling Stone, the Mason City school district in Iowa has begun using AI as it scrambles to comply with the new legislation. The district acknowledges the common flaw in Republicans’ demands that all books be age-appropriate—which is that it’s impossible to probe every single title in a school’s library for content that might be deemed offensive. However, failing to comply with the legislation could result in disciplinary action. As a result, the district found a shortcut to reviewing the books. It started by compiling a “master list” of the most commonly challenged books that might need review. Then, each text was scanned for sexual content using AI software.

Using this procedure, the district identified 19 titles that were flagged for sexual content and promptly pulled them from its library collections while the district awaited “further guidance or clarity.” The titles removed included The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. While the district called the use of AI a “defensible process,” it raises a lot of concerns.

For one, the AI program was strictly looking for sexual content without any regard for context. Simply designating sex as bad is a gross simplification that fails to take into account when sex-related content is used to educate or raise awareness. Additionally, while the bill specified banning books that include a description of a sex act, it seems the AI was flagging any book with so much as a sexual reference. There are also concerns about reliability and bias. When Popular Science tried to repeat the district’s process, it found inconsistent results, such as ChatGPT clearing The Kite Runner upon its first inquiry but flagging it for sexual content on the second. Meanwhile, it’s easy to see where the bias comes in when the school district only used the process on books that they previously selected for review. It almost seems like the district was just looking for justification to ban the books they already had a problem with.

Relying on a machine to determine which books should be banned reiterates that Republicans have no idea what’s in the books they want to ban, and have no reliable methods to even enforce the censorship laws they’re trying to push.

(via Rolling Stone, featured image: Getty Images)