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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

#111

Post by Rebelgecko »

dpark wrote: post #82
Rebelgecko wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The user doesn't own the book, the user has a revocable license to the book. Amazon has no qualms about taking away books that people have bought 2. I doubt the Kindle version of the LLM will run locally. Is Amazon repurposing the author-provided files, or will the users' device upload the text of the book?

I am so confused by some of the comments in this thread. All these weird mental gymnastics to argue that users should have less rights. “Oh, you think you should be able to use an LLM with a book you paid for? Well you don’t own and book.” Ok, and you like that? You want even less ownership? Less control?

I don't agree with the way you're interpreting the comment. If anything I think it's BAD that you don't really "own" digital content.

I guess my argument is that Amazon shouldn't be able to have their cake and eat it too

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

#112

Post by fragmede »

KaiserPro wrote: post #101
akersten wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what rights the company was relying upon to execute the new feature what rights does a bookstore clerk need to answer questions about a product on the store's shelves? what a presumptuous question

Either the Clerk would have read it, because they bought it, or borrowed it from the library. I mean they could have read it on company time as well. However, let us not use a straw man here. Its not some company clerk, its one of the largest company on earth using other people's copy right to make more money for them selves.

The author also gets a cut of this, no? It is the author's prerogative to sell their books to be read on a Kindle and they get compensated, maybe perhaps unfairly, when I choose to buy the book. Whatever happens after that, other then copying it and sticking it on Anna's archive is basically free game as long as I'm making derivative works and making money off them. Anything short of that, I'm good.

That's my thoughts on that, anyway.

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

#113

Post by tstrimple »

hasbot wrote: post #109

Google AI does a pretty good job of this already: > I'm on page 750 of Anathem. Please give me a recap. > You are currently reading the section of the book where the main characters have been launched into orbit aboard a repurposed military rocket and are preparing to board the alien starship, the Daban Urnud. more recap details follow....

Given different printings and formats for books, I’d be very surprised if asking about a specific page number works reliably at all across books. I don’t even know if epub has page numbers embedded to keep track because the number of words on a page of an ereader is entirely arbitrary. My wife has her kindle in grandma mode or something. Only about 50 words fit on a page.

I would expect much more reliable results from chapter numbers though.

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

#114

Post by DennisP »

georgefrowny wrote: post #91
DennisP wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind bezos using 1.21 gigawatts per request, as long as it's only for a very short time.

Brutal on the crest factor though, you'll definitely get a snotty phone call from your power company if you keep that up.

Maybe. Depends on how many capacitors you have.

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

#115

Post by ffsm8 »

freedomben wrote: post #38
bko wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with the parent's comment? Okay it's not 100% my device my content, so I shouldn't be allowed to run a local AI against the text?

IMHO you should be able to enjoy your books however you want. If you want to run a local AI against it, more power to you. But my opinion doesn't matter. Only Amazon's does. That's the point I was making. The premise of "my device, my content" is flawed (because of the DRM Amazon uses) and undermines the argument.

Right, under that argument it's their content, their rules then - making this situation even more of a non issue because they're adding this feature themselves.

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

#116

Post by wahnfrieden »

freedomben wrote: post #34
wahnfrieden wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of books are you reading? You're telling on yourself (and very arrogant about it).

My thought exactly. Not all books are the same, and I'm willing to bet that GP is not reading the same books that I am, and not with the same goals.

Even Pynchon's lightest work yet, the newly released Shadow Ticket, has me immediately reading it a 2nd time for many details I missed the first time through. Imagine the arrogance of shaming a Pynchon reader assuming they should never need to check notes or refer back to earlier pages.

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

#117

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#120

Post by simianwords »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #25
akersten wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what rights the company was relying upon to execute the new feature what rights does a bookstore clerk need to answer questions about a product on the store's shelves? what a presumptuous question

Yeah, the "but what about a human" argument doesn't really work here. Scale of data matters as always. And an Ai for kindle has the scale of 20 years of literature (and more if they just scrape the internet).

That way it should be illegal or discouraged to select text from a book and paste it elsewhere
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