When AI Met IRs: Bot Activity and the Institutional Repository
Abstract
High download counts are a good thing -- right? But what happens when those numbers become unusually -- even alarmingly -- high? Are there truly human users at the other end, or is this an indication of AI bot activity? When the Digital Initiatives team at the University of San Diego noticed a sudden and substantial uptick in download numbers, we began asking questions: What's really going on? Is this cause for concern? How do we address this? Will our users be impacted? To explore and answer them, we consulted with the library’s Scholarly Communications Committee and corresponded with our Digital Commons representative. We enrolled in DC’s pilot program for anti-bot blocking, designed to reduce the number of suspicious downloads from targeted regions. Although these efforts helped us learn more about the situation, they also generated even more questions, such as long-term planning by commercial IR platforms to effectively address these issues, and what it means for open content more broadly, especially as it impacts human authors, creators, and users. Is this a "dark side" to open access? As AI bots become more and more sophisticated, how will IRs rise to the challenge? This presentation will encourage robust discussion among attendees about their own experiences and reflections surrounding AI bots’ mining of open access institutional repositories. Let’s get this important conversation started!