"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
In the last few years, people have been pointing out an emergent benefit of ink on dead tree books: there are no banner ads, no tracking cookies, no social media integration, no gamification, no information about your reading habits sent to Google's data mines. When you buy a physical book, you own it, and nothing you do with it can be tracked, monetized, advertised, or subscriptionized.
And I bet some tech bro heard that and said "Hold my beer".
And that's the problem with books - from a tech bros perspective. Once bought, books can't be monetized any further. They can even be shared at no cost. If libraries weren't a thing already, their introduction today wouldn't be possible.
Biggest reason I absolutely LOVE my manga collection. No way an advertiser can insert their bullshit after I've purchased a physical volume or collection.
And my wank mags. Try and make me verify my age to look at pictures of boobies will you?!
Pretty sure those were always age restricted unless you stole them. And since they were usually on the highest shelves, the kids wouldn't easily reach them to steal them.
And the cashier would prolly ask for your ID.
Ofc you could alway find some in their natural habitat; the woods. A discarded and perhaps slightly sticky edition.
That’s why i dislike reading on kindle. The comfort still outweighs the cons, but when it gives me “estimated reading times” my skin crawls
Haha losers, I self host my digital library!
I have a $25 shit tablet from Amazon and pirate epubs. They're also backed up a few ways on my network and offsite.
AI is infiltrating consumer hardware, no matter where you might look. From the Humane AI Pin (whose parent company was sold to HP last week for $116 million) to news of AI models disrupting stock markets, it's hard to disconnect from just how ubiquitous AI has become.
What the fuck kind of statement is this? The Humane AI Pin was a disastrous failure. Maybe a hundred people actually bought one. And that's the absolute best example the writer can come up with for how AI is supposedly "infiltrating consumer hardware"? And then they can't even come up with a second example so they just throw up their hands and say "or, y'know, like the stock market." Yes, the stock market, famously a piece of consumer hardware.
This "ai bookmark" has somehow taken the throne for the stupidest ai device - and that's a crowded room of challengers
Can I just have the bookmark read everything for me? I’ll just melt into a puddle of lazy stupid.
tries it for smut AI bookmark:"I cannot read this because It violates our content policy."
And there's gonna be ads every 5 minutes. What a fantastic experience.
No, but the second iteration, Bookmark2, will be much thinner and have a longer battery life.
Since that bookmark is supposed to give you an AI summary of what you have read before the bookmarks placing, just place the bookmark at the last page - it probaby will summarize the whole book for you then.
Have you heard about the concept called "an audio book"?
I don’t want it to read to me, I want it to read for me. No thoughts, head empty. Let the AI think for me. I am unnecessary.
🤣 Ah! Voluntary vegetative state...
just use the receipt from the physical book purchase from your local used bookshop. or buy a bookmark from them.
useless trash, that's all this is. remember to cancel all subscriptions and stop consuming. let them feel it... doubt it'll happen because people are EASILY swayed with junk and like being abused apparently. Sigh... world's so bad
Buy a bookmark? For like $5? Use the $5 bill instead, and have some emergency coffee money with your book at all times.
yeah, to support local businesses that sell actual books
I've ... ah ... spent significantly more than $5 on a bookmark before.
I made one in school for my mum back in… 2003? She still uses it
My favourite bookstores just give you a bookmark with every purchase. Even if you order from them.
My favorite bookstores do that too. I was going to one so often, I had to ask them to not give me a new one because I already had 20 at home lol
Or make a bookmark! My friends have done that and made them all artistic and stuff
Imagine this: You pick up the book with the bookmark in place and due to its top-heavy design it slips out of the book and shatters on the ground. Now your 129-$-bookmark is damaged beyond repair and you don't know where to pick up reading!
But hey, at least you get to read the book as the author meant it now, and not through the lense of AI.... :D
$129 a year...
I can read just fine, thank you
I will buy million of those. Please make it fast before I change my mind.
Love this. I don't want to read books. I want to have read books. I heard that if you read a certain amount of books that when you die you get an achievement.
Been saying for years I wish I could spend less time lost in a good book and more time making my boss rich.
I mean, there are definitely some books I wish I could have read without having to suffer through the process of actually reading them. Looking at you, Three Body Problem.
But the last thing I want is an LLM giving me a badly mangled, partly invented Sunday of them.
/s ? Please let there be an /s ?
Despite Poe's law, I'm reasonably confident OP is in fact being sarcastic. But because of Poe's law, we'll probably never know for certain.
Finally, someone has thought up a product more stupid and overpriced for what it is than juicero
Yeah, this is competing with Juicero for sheer pointlessness.
You literally have to tell it what page you're on and what book you're reading. Then it sends it to the phone you already have.
What the fuck is the bookmark for?
The bookmark is for making money.
If it turns books into audio books without hallucinations that change the words, it's great
I've got the perfect name for such a product. When someone is an idiotic loser I call them a "Shit-gibbon".
This? "Shit-ribbon".