[rowe]

I find AI to be an excellent tool for book recommendations and for discussing what I'm reading, largely because the better models can draw upon a huge range of context beyond just the text itself. Things like reviews and study guides.

By setting up the assistant overlay on the power button of my android e-reader, I can easily share the current page when I encounter an unfamiliar historical event or concept and get a quick summary without breaking my flow. For this kind of query, I've found the reliability to be very high and the risk of hallucination to be minimal.

While resource consumption is a valid concern, it helps to have some perspective. The energy cost of this kind of use (including a relative share of the training cost) is much lower than other data-heavy activities people do without a second thought, like streaming video or playing games.

I use Gemini whose training includes Google's vast library of rights-owned material, including Google Books and Scholar.