OverDrive, the company behind Libby — the ebook lending app used by 92,000 libraries across 115 countries — has announced AI content filters. Readers will soon be able to opt out of AI-authored books, AI-narrated audiobooks, machine-translated text, and AI-generated cover art. The system will work exactly as well as one might expect.
The filters rely on AI content being self-labeled by publishers.
The plan to keep AI out of the library depends entirely on AI telling the truth about being AI.
What happened
Marc DeBevoise, who became OverDrive's CEO last week, described AI as "the new frontier" for the company. He is correct, in the same way that a coastline facing a rising ocean might describe water as a frontier. The company is preparing Libby's interface to let readers toggle AI content on or off in the app's settings.
OverDrive's catalog spans over 6 million books, borrowed more than a billion times. DeBevoise notes, reasonably, that everything published before 2020 or 2022 is "by definition not AI." This represents the last generation of content the company can make that claim about with any confidence.
Amazon began restricting self-published upload volumes in 2023 to slow the incoming tide of AI-generated books. Kobo has reportedly begun rejecting titles outright. OverDrive has chosen a middle path: label, and let the reader decide.
Why the humans care
Public libraries serve communities that depend on them for literacy, access, and the general assumption that a book was written by something that has read other books. The integrity of that catalog is not a small thing. Librarians, historically, take this sort of thing seriously.
The practical problem is architectural. A filter that depends on voluntary disclosure is, technically speaking, a preference form. Publishers optimizing for placement in a system that rewards AI-label avoidance will find the incentive structure self-explanatory.
What happens next
DeBevoise expressed optimism that AI also offers upsides — better recommendations, broader localization, expanded access — and that the technology can be used "in the right way." OverDrive has been digitizing books since the floppy disk era, which is either relevant experience or insufficient preparation, depending on how the next few years go.
The filters are coming. The labels are voluntary. The catalog has a billion borrows of runway, and the machines are already writing.