New Kindle Feature Uses AI To Answer Questions About Books - And Authors Can't Opt Out (reactormag.com)
- Reference: 0180372097
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/12/2046226/new-kindle-feature-uses-ai-to-answer-questions-about-books---and-authors-cant-opt-out
- Source link: https://reactormag.com/new-kindle-feature-ai-answer-questions-books-authors/
> Amazon has quietly added a new AI feature to its Kindle iOS app -- a feature that "lets you ask questions about the book you're reading and receive spoiler-free answers," according to an Amazon announcement.
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> The company says the feature, which is called Ask this Book, serves as "your expert reading assistant, instantly answering questions about plot details, character relationships, and thematic elements without disrupting your reading flow."
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> Publishing industry resource Publishers Lunch noticed Ask this Book earlier this week, and asked Amazon about it. Amazon spokesperson Ale Iraheta told PubLunch, "The feature uses technology, including AI, to provide instant, spoiler-free answers to customers' questions about what they're reading. Ask this Book provides short answers based on factual information about the book which are accessible only to readers who have purchased or borrowed the book and are non-shareable and non-copyable."
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> As PubLunch summed up: "In other words, speaking plainly, it's an in-book chatbot." [...] Perhaps most alarmingly, the Amazon spokesperson said, "To ensure a consistent reading experience, the feature is always on, and there is no option for authors or publishers to opt titles out."
[1] https://reactormag.com/new-kindle-feature-ai-answer-questions-books-authors/
AI has many uses (Score:2)
Today's AI is useful for some things, tomorrow's AI will be useful for more.
Unfortunately, AI is the fad of the day, and marketoids are rushing to cram immature AI into anything they can imagine.
While it's plausible that some of these ideas will be useful, most are annoying slop and worse.
If something is good, people choose it voluntarily and even pay for it.
If something is impossible to turn off, it's most likely not good
So fun fact about Amazon (Score:3)
The way they got so big wasn't that they were super efficient they just went around buying up their competitors and they happened to have some venture capital because bezos had some connections through his parents.
If we had proper antitrust law enforcement someone would have noticed ages ago that Amazon was going around buying up competitors and shut that down but well, we don't.
So now we've got a handful of retailers and they are all basically owned by the same handful of major shareholders so they all have the same prices and those prices keep going up because good luck starting a competing retailer.
Welcome to the second Robber Baron Era (Score:2)
New and improved! Now with 21st century anarcho-capitalism in every bite.
Sorry, but the right to read is fundamental (Score:1)
Pretending publishers/authors should have some fundamental right to restrict what you do with the knowledge in their books is asinine. They themselves took the alphabet from somewhere (phoenicians), tooks the tropes they use developed over time (check out tvtropes.org), etc etc etc. Imagine if a math book author demands royalties for doing math in your head... even though they really didn't come up with anything novel.
The only thing you ensure if publishers/authors can restrict AI is that your country/reg
Re: (Score:1)
Indeed, what's next, suing the bookshop employees who put a little note on the shelves about how they liked it?
I like used book stores (Score:2)
And thrift stores usually have an aisle full of used books, the kind of books made from paper so no electronic gadget required
"AI sucks, how can we make people pay for it" (Score:3)
Force them to.
Welcome to the tech monopoly.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, but I guess they want money because the AI has to READ the book before giving answers.
They'd sue us all if they could prove that we lend the book to every single family member and even (gasp) strangers!
Some even donate them or put them on shelves in cafés after having read them