An Iowa school district is using ChatGPT to decide which books to ban

Iowan's priorities are where they always have been. They've just been ashamed of them for a long time. In the past decade or so, they've been told that it's OK to be anti-science, bigoted, and paranoid. They're now saying out loud what used to be quiet.

Not All Iowans, to be sure. This is largely a rural/urban divide, with college towns usually acting as urban islands even when they are otherwise rural. In the past, the two often didn't meet, but social media and the 24 hour news cycle have made them a lot more visible to each other.

As the article clearly describes, the school district is using ChatGPT to compile a list of books already stocked by the library to be removed. That can correctly be considered "banning" books. No one is claiming the sum total of all books not stocked by the library have been banned from it, or that the school district doesn't have the right to decide what the library does and doesn't carry. What's under debate are the method being used, and the merits of the decision making process.