“Libraries as temples of truth in the AI age“ – an interview with Prof. Dr. Wolfram Horstmann

On May 12, 2025, Prof. Dr. Wolfram Horstmann, Director and CEO of FIZ Karlsruhe, spoke at the international conference ”Open Metadata and Linked Open Science" in Seoul, Korea. The event took place on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the National Library of South Korea in cooperation with Stanford University. In his keynote speech, Prof. Horstmann took a look at key questions for the future: What role do science, libraries and artificial intelligence play in building an open knowledge infrastructure?

In the subsequent interview with a leading Korean daily newspaper “Naeil Newspaper”, Horstmann explained why libraries need to be places of trust more than ever in a world characterized by a flood of information, subjectivity and AI-generated content. He emphasized that it is the task of libraries and qualified specialists to differentiate between information and knowledge - and to help society to critically assess artificial intelligence.

A central topic of the discussion was the vision of a global, open knowledge infrastructure, such as the one being pursued in Germany through the establishment of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). According to Horstmann, this is a necessary response to the challenges of the digital age - and just as important as public transportation, parks or schools.

Read the whole interview