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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

#81

Post by nephihaha »

squigz wrote: post #67
nephihaha wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of a novel, or even certain text books, the author relies on the reader not jumping ahead. Especially murder mysteries and those kind of genres. There are artistic reasons for that, and it can wreck the work. In my experience, AI summaries often miss points or misrepresent work. There is a human element to reading a well written novel. An AI will miss some of the subtleties and references.

But if I want to jump ahead and read the last page of a book first, is it reasonable for an author to tell me I can't do that?

From an artistic point of view, yes it is. It's a bit like doing a crossword with the answers in big letters next to it... It destroys the point.

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

#82

Post by dpark »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #61
catgary wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need any rights to execute the feature. The user owns the book. The app lets the user feed the book into an LLM, as is absolutely their right, and asks questions.

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?

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

#83

Post by akersten »

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).

> 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

I haven't seen a convincing argument why not. There's millions of librarians with the knowledge of more than 20 years of literature under their belt. Why can they answer your questions about a book but the robot can't?

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

#84

Post by supern0va »

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.

If you have ample free time and few commitments and/or you read very short pop fiction, I could see how you might believe this. But there's a vast world of very long and dense literature, and also...people have kids and a life that gets in the way. Combine the two and...well, I can see why this feature would be useful. :)

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

#85

Post by dpark »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #27
catgary wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need any rights to execute the feature. The user owns the book. The app lets the user feed the book into an LLM, as is absolutely their right, and asks questions.

>The app lets the user feed the book into an LLM, as is absolutely their right, I don't think that's cut and clear yet. Throwing media onto someone else's server may count as distribution.

How likely do you think it is that Amazon doesn’t have a pre-existing contract with these publishers to host these books on Amazon servers?

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

#86

Post by DennisP »

lm28469 wrote: post #63
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).

It's more telling about the current state of affairs than the person who commented. Forgetting things is part of life, move on, we don't need daddy bezos sucking 1.21 gigawatts per request to tell you that some side character drunk a beer 12 chapters ago so you can enjoy the joke you just missed.

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

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

#87

Post by DennisP »

nephihaha wrote: post #66
jeffbee wrote: post #39

I really don't understand why authors believe they have something to say about how I read their book.

They can't force you do anything, but a book or a piece of music etc, is often designed in a particular order so you get a particular effect. You don't look up the end of a whodunnit before reading the beginning because that would make it kind of pointless.

And yet, some people enjoy doing that. I have no idea why but I think they should be allowed to do it.

In any case, Amazon claims this is spoiler-free, which would be easy to implement by feeding only the portion you've read into the LLM context.

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

#88

Post by dpark »

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…

> where's the room for objection?

I suspect most of the people arguing this way would be in favor of more end user rights if we were talking about anything except the right to use AI.

“Rights good, AI bad” somehow leads to the insane argument that it’s a good thing you don’t have rights over the book you bought.

“You don’t really own the book” is a crazy argument unless the person saying this wants the locked-down DRM world where you can’t own a piece of media.

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

#89

Post by DennisP »

nephihaha wrote: post #81
squigz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if I want to jump ahead and read the last page of a book first, is it reasonable for an author to tell me I can't do that?

From an artistic point of view, yes it is. It's a bit like doing a crossword with the answers in big letters next to it... It destroys the point.

I agree but for some reason, there are people who enjoy doing that. I think they should be allowed to do as they like.

In any case, Amazon claims this feature is spoiler-free and that would be easy to implement. It likely works by feeding the book into an LLM context, and they could simply feed in the portion you've already read.

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

#90

Post by DennisP »

terafo wrote: post #65
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.

There are LLM's that can process 1 million token context window. Amazon Nova 2 for one, even though it's definitely not the highest quality model. You just put whole book in context and make LLM answer questions about it. And given the fact that domain is pretty limited, you can just store KV cache for most popular books on SSD, eliminating quite a bit of cost.

You could also fill the context with just the book portion that you've read. That'd be a sure-fire way to fulfill Amazon's "spoiler-free" promise.
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