Book publishers are trying out chatbot versions of new titles, offering “conversational companions” to readers.
Amazon’s virtual shelves already have books authored by artificial intelligence. A startup thinks that books written by humans could also benefit from AI by including a chatbot ready to discuss a book’s content.
Why Should You Read Books When You Can Chat With Chatbots About Them Instead?
A startup named YouAI, which provides tools for creating AI apps, has recently created an app known as Book AI. This app pledges to “transform any book into an AI.” It creates a chatbot that possesses comprehensive knowledge about the book and can engage in endless discussions about it, almost like a knowledgeable Terminator who unexpectedly joined your book club meeting.
Dmitry Shapiro, the CEO of YouAI, mentioned that he’s in discussions with numerous publishers, both big and small, to develop chatbots for new releases. Solution Tree, a provider of numerous continuing education books, is already set to provide what Shapiro refers to as “conversational companions” for its titles.
A chatbot version can prove particularly beneficial for textbooks, as users often have specific queries or require clarification, according to Shapiro. Additionally, since the chatbot is powered by a large language model, similar to ChatGPT and others, which has been trained on diverse content, it can occasionally help users put the concepts from a book into practice. For instance, Shapiro illustrates this by mentioning that you could ask the chatbot for a book on website optimization and have it suggest a design to implement the key points.
YouAI develops its book bots using a technique called retrieval augmented generation (RAG), ensuring that chatbots stick to specific source material. This same approach is employed by search engines to maintain the focus of search chatbots on genuine information and prevent them from generating inaccurate results.
I decided to upload Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to YouAI’s app to see how it functions. This felt like an appropriate test considering the current discussions and fears surrounding AI, especially with Halloween just around the corner.
Exploring Frankenstein: AI’s Take on a Classic Tale and Modern Fears
The Franken-bot provided a good summary of the book and its themes. It even noticed some intriguing connections between the timeless story of scientific overreach and contemporary concerns about an AI apocalypse. It likely drew these parallels due to its training data, which includes more recent content discussing the book.
I decided to upload Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to YouAI’s app to see how it functions. This felt like an appropriate test considering the current discussions and fears surrounding AI, especially with Halloween just around the corner.
The Franken-bot provided a good summary of the book and its themes. It even noticed some intriguing connections between the timeless story of scientific overreach and contemporary concerns about an AI apocalypse. It likely drew these parallels due to its training data, which includes more recent content discussing the book.
I asked the chatbot if it identified with the monster, and it replied with a common chatbot excuse for avoiding difficult questions: “I’m an artificial intelligence, so I can’t have personal feelings or identities. Therefore, I can’t identify with any characters.”
Afterward, the chatbot made an interesting point, suggesting that maybe I could relate to the monster instead: “Many readers might relate to the monster’s feelings of loneliness, rejection, and longing for companionship. These are universal human experiences that Shelley thoroughly explores through the character of the monster.” Well said.
