takigon (u/takigon) - Readit News

takigon commented on Show HN: An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM github.com/shutootaki/boo... · Posted by u/takigon

takigon · 17 days ago

Disclaimer:

I am not fluent in English, so I have included my comments via a translation tool. Therefore, I may offend you with inappropriate language expressions. I apologize in advance.

takigon commented on Show HN: An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM github.com/shutootaki/boo... · Posted by u/takigon

patcon · 17 days ago

It's interesting that, if this became commonplace, it could be much easier to get value out of poorly written books...

Some people have deep knowledge, but don't have the skills to untangle context and lay out the right learning path for a reader. These people likely bell-curve around certain neurotypes, which perhaps know certain sorts of knowledge more strongly.

Right now, those people shouldn't publish. But if LLMs could augment poorly structured content (not incorrect content, just poorly structured), that perhaps open up more people to share their wisdom.

Anyhow, just thinking out loud here. I'm sure there are some massive downsides that are coming to mind for ppl reading :)

takigon · 17 days ago

Thanks for your comment. I can see how it could be used successfully for those types of books.

takigon commented on Show HN: An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM github.com/shutootaki/boo... · Posted by u/takigon

nerdjon · 17 days ago

If we are purely talking about textbooks, I can see the value in a tool like this... assuming we still have yet to actually solve the problem of AI being able to tell the truth and could just lead to more issues if we can't even read a textbook without it and then learn the wrong thing.

Not to necessarily diss the work that was done on this, but the idea of actually wanting this for reading feels like it is a continuation of the lack of attention span that has seemed to get worse and worse. We already saw this with the oversimplification of television shows and movies. Many of them leaning more towards slapping you in the face with something instead of subtly.

I know way too many people that struggle to sit still for a half hour episode of some show now (like my partner, frustratingly) and have to be doing something else.

If you are struggling with absorbing the information you are reading that is likely a sign you should put down the book and come back to it later, obviously your mind wants to be doing something else. If it is a continued issue than practice reading something that you know you would like. Personally my "in" for my love of reading was reading video game books that expanded the lore and it grew from there, but I was already invested in the story so the book was easier to read.

Using this for a book feels more like a crutch than anything else. That is obviously before you get into whether or not the LLM is actually going to tell you the truth.

There is however one possible use case I could get into, but this is something that could be solved by just finding a video or something online. A refresher when it has been a long time between books coming out in a series.

takigon · 17 days ago

Thank you very much for your thought-provoking comments.

I actually sympathize with you very much.

As you say, there is a non-zero chance that this app will contribute to a lack of concentration, but I cannot dismiss the possibility that the opposite will happen.

In my case, I have often found myself wanting the crutch of LLM due to lack of prerequisite knowledge when reading technical or philosophical books.

Also, I am an Asian whose English is not that good, and there are times when I have to read a book in its original language because there is no translation in my native language.

This application was created on an experimental basis to remove these panes, and the chat function with LLM is only one function. It should be used at the appropriate time depending on the user's use case.

takigon commented on Show HN: An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM github.com/shutootaki/boo... · Posted by u/takigon

l3x4ur1n · 17 days ago

Nice! I was also thinking about e-reader with LLM support to discuss topics of the book I'm reading with, explain words or phrases (I'm not a native English reader) and so on. But this seems too troublesome to install and does not have a mobile app - I want to read books on the go, not really in front of my computer. Do you think it's possible to make it phone friendly and easier to install?

takigon · 17 days ago

Thanks for your comment!

> Do you think it is possible to make it phone friendly and easy to install?

Yes, it is possible. The app supports PWA (Progressive Web Application) and responsive design, so it can be used on mobile by deploying the source code from this Github repository to a cloud environment.

Since this app was originally built exclusively for myself, I have not deployed it to a public cloud for external users to use, but will consider deploying it if users want to.

Another idea is that since this app is OSS, users can deploy it to the cloud themselves.

takigon commented on Show HN: An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM github.com/shutootaki/boo... · Posted by u/takigon

IanCal · 17 days ago

You shouldn’t have to do this but it may be worth adding a note at the end of a comment about this here - accusations of someone being or using LLMs are often thrown out and very rudely (even if correct about the llm use, I don’t think that’s an excuse).

Thanks for building and sharing something.

takigon · 17 days ago

Thank you for your instruction. I will be careful in the future.

takigon commented on Show HN: An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM github.com/shutootaki/boo... · Posted by u/takigon

footy · 17 days ago

This feels incredibly dystopian

takigon · 17 days ago

Thank you for your comment. As others have pointed out, there is a non-zero chance that it may lead to a decrease in concentration, but the reverse may also be true. I think it would be better to actually try it and see if it fits your skin or not.

takigon commented on Show HN: An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM github.com/shutootaki/boo... · Posted by u/takigon

submeta · 17 days ago

Why so aggressive? OP created an app that seems very useful for many. You can just ignore it. But you prefer to attack the idea. Why?

takigon · 17 days ago

Thank you for your consideration of my feelings.

takigon commented on Show HN: An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM github.com/shutootaki/boo... · Posted by u/takigon

edent · 17 days ago

> The problem: Traditional e-readers are passive.

Why is that a problem? Your statement is a bit like saying "traditional avocados are too delicious. We at YuckCo are aiming to change that!"

You can't just define something as a problem merely to help you sell a solution.

> When you encounter something unclear, you have to context-switch to search for it.

Literally every eReader I've used has a built in dictionary. I tap the word and it tells me what it means.

How is that context switching but "Hey, Siri, what does the word avocado mean?" isn't?

takigon · 17 days ago

I think all your points are spot on.

Especially “You can't just define something as a problem merely to help you sell a solution.” is really spot on. It made me pause.

I think it's fair to say that we created this product to test whether LLM can improve the traditional reading experience. And currently, I feel that LLM has somewhat improved the reading experience of technical books.

takigon commented on Show HN: An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM github.com/shutootaki/boo... · Posted by u/takigon

future10se · 17 days ago

Interesting project. I've been thinking about a tool like this; I might be following a multi-volume book series, but it's been years since the last book. When I pick up the latest volume, sometimes there are details that I just can't remember (small details that may turn out important, relationships between minor characters, etc.)

I would just consult a fan wiki, but that doesn't work if the title isn't popular or if the book is too new. This seems like the perfect tool if it can somehow maintain coherency across multiple books.

That said, I do understand (and share) a lot of the frustration and hesitancy that people here have around AI tools; I don't want an app that takes away the act of thinking (like that post recently about teachers using AI to make banal lesson plans, and students in turn using AI to write essays -- what is the point then?). I hope you don't take it too much to heart, and try to showcase use cases where your app can actually provide value.

Another piece of feedback is it would be great if this could be all packaged up into a docker image that would make it easy to deploy on a local machine (or like on a home server/NAS). Right now it seems there are still a lot of manual steps and scaffolding.

takigon · 17 days ago

Thanks for the feedback!

> That said, I do understand (and share) a lot of the frustration and hesitancy that people here have around AI tools

I share some of the same feelings as well. As for use cases where it can provide value, I think it can be of value if you want to read difficult academic, technical or business books with deep understanding. I think so.

> Right now it seems there are still a lot of manual steps and scaffolding.

I think you are right. I originally planned to use it as a tool for my own exclusive use, so I was able to build an environment with minimal implementation costs, but I didn't expect to get so many comments. I will improve it!

takigon commented on Show HN: An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM github.com/shutootaki/boo... · Posted by u/takigon

nathan_douglas · 17 days ago

Thank you for sharing this!

I'm disappointed by some of the negative comments. I'm pretty excited about this and plan to try and get this running locally this week. I end discussing a lot of the books I read with ChatGPT, e.g. "hey, this made me think of $idea" or "uh... this is familiar, what am I thinking of?" and to be able to get back a "yeah, check out Ulam's paper on $topic or $book by $author" is really really valuable to me.

I don't read a lot of ePubs (they tend to be mostly PDFs or dead trees) so I might need to adjust a bit, but I'd definitely gonna give something a spin with this.

takigon · 17 days ago

I am really glad to hear you say that. It's very encouraging. There is still a lot of room for improvement in this application, so please feel free to give us feedback if you have any complaints after actually using it.