I don't think we should trust the people that own AI to tell us which books we should and shouldn't read.
Reposted from
Ian Martin
"Imagine a world in which an A.I. can analyze your reading patterns and alert you that you’re about to buy a book where there’s only a 10 percent chance you’ll get past Page 6..."
Fuck off. That's not empowerment, that's outsourcing your soul. That's outsouling.
www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/o...
Fuck off. That's not empowerment, that's outsourcing your soul. That's outsouling.
www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/o...
Comments
Another pointless AI exercise. Aren't they all?
Non sentient computing is a random opinion.
Your opinion is an algorithm from your life experience.
You can choose not to choose.
You can choose not to care.
You cannot choose to blame anyone else for that binary decision.
Entangled inertia?
If I could write my book reviews into OpenAI, for example, and the algorithm could suggest books based on these reviews to me, that would be great.
All their counsel only seemed to revolve around the question of important they considered the book in the local cultural discourse and its importance to the local cultural canon.
When I am in the local bookstore asking for recommendations, my feelings are, that there are a lot of people with me in that room whose options count more than mine.
➡️ local authors, who are friends of the seller.
➡️ the chairperson of the local bookclub, who the seller wants to bring more readers.
➡️ the curator of the local library where the seller wants to raise interest for.
➡️ The book critics from public television in Switzerland, who the seller deems more capable than having a valid opinion on my taste than myself.
I believe it's hard for the AI solution to be worse than that.
And as a bonus for the OpenAI solution: I could finally buy books locally without having to get entrenched in the discussions described.
Heinlein was like that for me. Some incredible books, some nasty ones where he let the dark side or prejudice out too much. "AI" wouldn't pick up on that, it's too blunt an instrument.
"Pay us $500 and we'll use our AI to replace all those bad reviews."
LLM Book Concierge: "How about: Hitler Was Right About a Lot of Things."
LLM Book Concierge: "Wait, there's more... come back..."
*delete*