Know Your Worth #1: The Cost of Knowledge in the Age of AI

Course description

This is the first of a three-part series presented by the Library as part of International Open Access Week 2026. Learn more about Open Access Week here.

For the last five decades, the open access movement has challenged the the paywalls, gatekeeping and inequalities that shape who can access knowledge—asking who gets to learn, who gets to publish and who can afford to participate.

Today, AI promises to make knowledge more accessible than ever. But this promise depends on the largely invisible labour of researchers, writers, artists, annotators and many others whose work is absorbed into AI training models—often without recognition, consent or compensation.

AI is here to stay, and it is getting “smarter”. Yet the apparent cheapness of AI-generated knowledge may conceal new and rising costs. Knowledge is increasingly measured in tokens: units that can be priced, processed and exchanged, while the human and material work behind them remains difficult to see.

If open access confronts the cost of knowledge, AI raises new questions: Who pays, who benefits, whose knowledge is represented—and how do we avoid reproducing existing inequalities?

The Library's Research Engagement team invites you to share your perspective and join an open-floor discussion.

Before the session, consider: