Inteligência artificial como ferramenta de mediação da informação: percepções dos estudantes de biblioteconomia da UFC sobre seu uso nas práticas acadêmicas

Abstract

This study aims to investigate Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an information mediation tool, based on the perceptions of students enrolled in the Library Science program at a federal university regarding its use in academic practices, considering the advancement and popularization of these technologies in the educational context and their relevance to a field directly related to the management, organization, mediation, and dissemination of information. The proposed general objective seeks to analyze how the use of Artificial Intelligence is integrated into the study practices of students in the Library Science program, considering its contributions, limitations, and implications for academic education. To achieve this general purpose, the specific objectives sought to: 1) identify the main AI tools used by Library Science students at UFC and map how they are employed in their study and research routines; 2) understand students' perceptions of the challenges and risks associated with the use of AI; 3) analyze, from the perspective of Information Science, how AI acts in practice as an implicit mediating agent, interfering in the organization, access, and presentation of information. 4) To discuss the ethical and pedagogical implications of using AI in the training of future information professionals, especially regarding the development of informational autonomy or dependence. The methodology is characterized as qualitative research with an exploratory purpose. The research setting is the Library Science Course at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), linked to the Center for Humanities. The empirical corpus consisted of 10 semi-structured interviews with students from different semesters of the course. The data were analyzed using Bardin's Content Analysis. The results show that students use various AI tools mainly for text synthesis, time optimization, and support for content comprehension. An ambivalent perception was found: while AI is seen as an agile and efficient assistant, it also generates ethical concerns related to plagiarism, the reliability of sources, and the risk of informational dependence and atrophy of critical thinking. It is concluded that AI acts as an implicit mediating agent that reconfigures access to information, requiring future librarians to develop skills for critical and ethical curation, reaffirming the irreplaceability of human mediation in the knowledge validation process