Using AI for reading

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by icallaci

What a great idea! I usually use AI for simple grammatical or punctuation questions when fixing an ebook, but I've never used it to summarize the first n chapters when I put a book aside. Thanks. I'm going to try this.

Does your version of AI distinguish the version of the english language the book is written in?


I'm not an AI person, so this question is mere curiosity.

Edit: i am repulsed by US english and any assumption that it's standard English

[rowe]

Quite right. You can add custom instructions to follow this kind of rule in most AIs. For example I've added to the saved memory for Gemini 'Use British spelling, phrasing, punctuation, measurements, currency.'

[Lynx-lynx]

Good to hear

[leebase]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Are you reading the original languages (Aramaic, Hebrew & Greek) or one or more of the many translations?

I don’t read ancient Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic so I can’t read the Bible in the original.

This time through I’m using the ESV. When I do these “read the Bible in a year” I try to pick a non-familiar version just to keep things a bit fresh.

If I’m really digging into a particular verse, I may look at several versions including commentary based on original texts etc. I did that more when I was younger.

At 60, 42 years in Christ, I’m encouraged that the Word still has new things to show me. Plenty of “how did I. It ever see this verse before” or garner an insight I hadn’t heard or thought before.

Having the AI to talk to has been wonderful - for me.

[Maristorm]

I recently had a project where I needed to turn a Russian text into an audiobook.
Most TTS/voice cloning services I tried were clearly focused on English voices, and the results in Russian were not great.

Eventually I found a voice cloning service that supports stress marks in Russian words (which is essential, since замок = castle and замок = lock are two very different things). That small detail made the audiobook sound much more natural.

For anyone curious, I even put together a comparison page with samples:
https://apihost.ru/voice-clone-comparison/

Might be useful if someone here is experimenting with non-English audiobooks.

[lumping-sugar66]

Originally Posted by Barty

Anyone using AI to help/enhance their reading?

Not for reading, for other areas I absolutely do it. One thing that I like is generating covers. I absolutely abhor book covers that are photographs or (god forbid) movie covers, and sometimes I just grab a story from a magazine or webpage that's just in plain text. I like to turn things into proper book-like formats in Calibre; so all those stories get a cover designed for them and a description, written by AI.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by lumping-sugar66

Not for reading, for other areas I absolutely do it. One thing that I like is generating covers. I absolutely abhor book covers that are photographs or (god forbid) movie covers, and sometimes I just grab a story from a magazine or webpage that's just in plain text. I like to turn things into proper book-like formats in Calibre; so all those stories get a cover designed for them and a description, written by AI.

There is an easy to use cover plugin without wasting the planet using AI. Add your image and select which metadata you want. Choose size, margins layout order, font face and font size.

Or not much more effort to use any decent image editor that has layers.