I might get downvoted as most of you will be opposed to it. Should Kindle start providing AI assist in the books? For example, I am reading Moby Dick right now, and some of the lines, I don't understand at first.
I can go and learn each words and decipher the line myself, or I could select it and let AI explain it to me within the Kindle App.
What do you think? Don't downvote please.
by faps_in_greyhound
47 Comments
Amazon is terrible, AI is terrible. Match made in heaven. I bet they could just play the movie for you from Prime if you have too much trouble with words.
This is why humankind is slowly getting dumber and dumber. The world is sprinting towards Wall-E levels of catastrophe and human de-evolution.
With how every major company is ’embracing’ AI. Features like this is probably not far away
Fuck no.
If one more thing gets AI added to it I will personally figure out how to build an atom bomb in my garden shed and send us all back to the Middle Ages.
I mean at a certain point, why read the book at all?
No. If you want to be able to understand things in Moby Dick there are countless resources that are handmade by real humans who know and love the book. You don’t need the slop machine.
if you like being stupid and illiterate then sure
If you don’t like learning words and figuring out the meaning of text why are you reading at all?
I mean for me, figuring things like that is fun.
Especially putting stuff in historical context.
If there was a way to disable it, I wouldnt fight it.
But personally ai is already everywhere
Absolutely not.
How fucking lazy are you people????
An AI that can’t actually understand anything (basically just a large statistics engine), yeah, no thanks.
The moment an AI assistant shows up in my ebooks is the moment I move back to paper.
Comprehension cannot but substituted with assistance. That is my personal feelings
You should learn to decipher the sentences yourself.
If you want to entirely separate learning and interpretation from reading, sure.
I would recommend sparknotes (written by a human who generally knows what they’re talking about) or even cliff notes for classic lit over ai (written by a computer guessing it’s pulling relevant information but well known to hallucinate events).
There are annotated versions of books.
For Moby Dick, check out the recommendations on a [reddit post from 4 years ago…](https://www.reddit.com/r/mobydick/s/9NaxdW60wh)
Oh my god you people can’t do anything
No, part of the reading process is deciphering those sentences and looking up those words! Thats how reading makes you smarter, it can be hard at first but it’s worth it!
You shouldn’t be reading if you’re not willing to do the work of reading. Just plug yourself into the matrix and be done with it.
If I could downvote twice I would.
No thank you.
Go learn each word and decipher the line yourself
I’m gonna mean this gently, but if this book is too complicated, then you should use this either as a learning opportunity or drop it. There are also annotated versions that can help either define or give context to things that may feel confusing. A.I. explain these passages often by the raw definition of a sentence rather than within the context of the work.
You miss out on a lot of meaning or understanding of the book otherwise. It’d be much like having a friend retell it to you. You might get the vibe, but it won’t be the same as you reading it.
Ray Bradbury is rolling in his grave right now
and then when you need to write an essay for your final, how are you going to do that without just spouting AI BS that the teacher will absolutely recognize? The reason challenging books are assigned is to challenge you. Just like you don’t grow muscles without challenging them, your brain can’t create new connections and learning pathways without challenge. The point of hard books is for you to think about what you are reading and figure it out, to learn new vocabulary and ways of speaking and reading that are more advanced than you are.
Can’t wait for an AI to tell me “Call me Ishmal” is a telephone number for Blondie.
The whole point of reading a piece of famous literature like Moby Dick is to develop and grow your vocab. Historical or important texts are often old and require an understanding of older vocab to read. Its an important skill. Ask yourself- can you read your country’s constitution and foundational documents and understand them, or are you relying on the interpretation of others?
Also books like Moby Dick are famous for their beautiful and flowing syntax- if you’re just learning from sources that have really simple sentence structure you’ll never learn how to read complex ones. When you find a word you don’t know, look it up! If you don’t understand a sentence, diagram it out (what’s the subject? object? verb? etc.). If you don’t get a turn of phrase, google it (with AI search OFF). Hell, many digital book systems have dictionary and search features built right into them so you can **do. your. own. research.** and ***learn***.
the entire point of reading books you find difficult is to learn and grow from them, you can’t learn or grow if you just have an AI tool do all your thinking for you, stop offloading your brain to an AI that doesn’t actually know anything
Christ, people are turning into intellectual jellyfish.
The fun is in the research FFS. You see a word or subject while reading that you don’t understand so you go study and learn about that thing. Wtf is happening that that isn’t a viable option? How do you learn any of the extra things? The history of a word, the intricacies of an obscure subject – all of that IS THE POINT OF READING NEW BOOKS. Oh my hell. This is fucking abysmal
Part of reading hard books is learning how language was used by the author. Having an AI explain it to you is turning your brain off. There is nothing wrong with not understanding something at first. The shame is in letting that lack of understanding become cemented by not being willing to put in the effort to learn.
Maybe someone could hold your eyelids open for you too?
Learn…to read? What kind of question is this??
Seriously, why even bother to read? Don’t people want to genuinely learn anything?
That’s why you’re reading books no?
Absolutely fucking not.
Why would you not go and learn the words? That’s the whole point of learning, so next time you come across it you can know what it means. AI is just going to make us dumber if we rely on it to tell us what they mean.
Absolutely not. It’s not reading if you’re cheating.
There’s literally a dictionary included if you highlight words, and you can activate a mode where words people commonly struggle with are auto underlined for you?
I don’t know how much more Kindle can give you…
Why do you need an artificial intelligence if you already have a real one? In theory, that is. Exercise your brain a bit, it won’t hurt.
Of course you’ll get downvoted. What will your next question be? Why do we spend money on books when we can use AI to write our own?
No, and what you’re looking for already exists: Annotated books.
Our society is doomed.
If you can only read the version edited for preschoolers then stick to it.
Why even think. Maybe AI should just think for us instead
NO NO NO