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New Kindle feature uses AI to answer questions about books

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Re: New Kindle feature uses AI to answer questions about books

#41

Post by thewebguyd »

Mouvelie wrote: post #4
savanaly wrote: post #2

If they're not using the book text to train models (keeping the focus on this particular new Kindle feature), where's the room for objection? My device, my content, it's none of the author's business how I read it, in my view. Edit: Given I've been a reader of HN for some time, I am perfectly aware that on Kindle you don't own the content, just a license to the content. Don't need any more people pointing this out! L…

"Amazon DID NOT answer PubLunch’s questions about “what rights the company was relying upon to execute the new feature was not answered, nor did they elaborate on the technical details of the service and any protections involved (whether to prevent against hallucinations, or to protect the text from AI training).”

> protect the text from AI training

Hasn't training been already ruled to be fair use in the recent lawsuits against Meta, Antrhopic? Ruled that works must be legally acquired, yes, but training was fair use.

Re: New Kindle feature uses AI to answer questions about books

#42

Post by g947o »

savanaly wrote: post #2

If they're not using the book text to train models (keeping the focus on this particular new Kindle feature), where's the room for objection? My device, my content, it's none of the author's business how I read it, in my view. Edit: Given I've been a reader of HN for some time, I am perfectly aware that on Kindle you don't own the content, just a license to the content. Don't need any more people pointing this out! L…

Not your content, it's Amazon's content, you only purchased a license to view it, which can be revoked at any time if daddy Jeff is not happy.

And I am not being cynical. That is literally what is on their web page, e.g.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTZT9PLM

Re: New Kindle feature uses AI to answer questions about books

#43

Post by tshaddox »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #14
savanaly wrote: post #2

If they're not using the book text to train models (keeping the focus on this particular new Kindle feature), where's the room for objection? My device, my content, it's none of the author's business how I read it, in my view. Edit: Given I've been a reader of HN for some time, I am perfectly aware that on Kindle you don't own the content, just a license to the content. Don't need any more people pointing this out! L…

It's not training on books, but it will answer questions about the book you're reading. Doesn't pass the sniff test. >My device, my content I don't think you own the kindle store and servers used to train the Ai.

> It's not training on books, but it will answer questions about the book you're reading. Doesn't pass the sniff test.

What do you mean? Presumably the implication is that it will essentially read the book (or search through it) in order to answer questions about it. An LLM can of course summarize text that's not in its training set.

Re: New Kindle feature uses AI to answer questions about books

#44

Post by Marsymars »

savanaly wrote: post #2

If they're not using the book text to train models (keeping the focus on this particular new Kindle feature), where's the room for objection? My device, my content, it's none of the author's business how I read it, in my view. Edit: Given I've been a reader of HN for some time, I am perfectly aware that on Kindle you don't own the content, just a license to the content. Don't need any more people pointing this out! L…

> My device, my content, it's none of the author's business how I read it, in my view.

In practice, that's not the case though, e.g. publishers on Kindle can choose not to allow text-to-speech assistive functionality.

Re: New Kindle feature uses AI to answer questions about books

#45

Post by ceejayoz »

g947o wrote: post #42
savanaly wrote: post #2

If they're not using the book text to train models (keeping the focus on this particular new Kindle feature), where's the room for objection? My device, my content, it's none of the author's business how I read it, in my view. Edit: Given I've been a reader of HN for some time, I am perfectly aware that on Kindle you don't own the content, just a license to the content. Don't need any more people pointing this out! L…

Not your content, it's Amazon's content, you only purchased a license to view it, which can be revoked at any time if daddy Jeff is not happy. And I am not being cynical. That is literally what is on their web page, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTZT9PLM

Fun fact: the first book Amazon remotely removed from Kindles was… 1984.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/jul/17/amazon-ki...

Re: New Kindle feature uses AI to answer questions about books

#46

Post by lm28469 »

Mouvelie wrote: post #7
charcircuit wrote: post #5

This sounds useful for when you forget something that happened chapters earlier or when you space out and need to figure out what's happening. This feature should work for the user, author's shouldn't be able to deprive me of this tool.

Good lord, at this point just drone off in front of a Netflix show. How bad has it gotten that you even suggest that one can "forget what happened chapters earlier" ? This is not normal.

We need to baby sit homoconsomators every step of the way or they get scared and confused

Re: New Kindle feature uses AI to answer questions about books

#47

Post by micromacrofoot »

bossyTeacher wrote: post #19
savanaly wrote: post #2

If they're not using the book text to train models (keeping the focus on this particular new Kindle feature), where's the room for objection? My device, my content, it's none of the author's business how I read it, in my view. Edit: Given I've been a reader of HN for some time, I am perfectly aware that on Kindle you don't own the content, just a license to the content. Don't need any more people pointing this out! L…

>My device, my content Afaik, while the device is yours, everything else on it isn't.

device is hardly yours unless you jailbreak it or collect bricks

Re: New Kindle feature uses AI to answer questions about books

#49

Post by johnnyanmac »

catgary wrote: post #37
johnnyanmac wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not training on books, but it will answer questions about the book you're reading. Doesn't pass the sniff test. >My device, my content I don't think you own the kindle store and servers used to train the Ai.

Are you implying that an LLM needs to be trained on a specific piece of text to answer questions about it?

If you want proper answers, yes. If you want to rely on whatever reddit or tiktok says about the book, then I guess at that point you're fine with hallucinations and others doing the thinking for you anyway. Hence the issues brought up in the article.

I wouldn't trust an LLM for anything more than the most basic questions of it didn't actually have text to cite.

Re: New Kindle feature uses AI to answer questions about books

#50

Post by Gimpei »

savanaly wrote: post #2

If they're not using the book text to train models (keeping the focus on this particular new Kindle feature), where's the room for objection? My device, my content, it's none of the author's business how I read it, in my view. Edit: Given I've been a reader of HN for some time, I am perfectly aware that on Kindle you don't own the content, just a license to the content. Don't need any more people pointing this out! L…

Couldn’t agree more. This is actually a super useful feature. I can’t think of how many times I’ve been reading a book and some minor character resurfaces and I’m like, who the hell is that guy? Now I can know. I can also get information on historical context. Who knows, maybe I can finally read Ulysses without having to have 5 other books.
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