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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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!
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.
Thank you for sharing the information/comments.
The extensions you have presented are indeed great, but they seem to lack features such as full text search, page count progress tracking, text highlighting, notes, etc.
Also, regarding RAG, I find it a bit cumbersome as I have to import the epub every time I open the book.
I am not familiar with this tool, so sorry if I am wrong.
"Too much thought into whether they could, and not enough thought on whether they should"
This is so true. I can't even begin to fathom the implications of this.
A large aspect of the creation of this app was motivated by my curiosity about what the reading experience offered by an e-reader with AI functionality natively integrated into it.
Another major reason was that I thought I would have to make it and use it to see if it was really necessary.
Thank you for your valuable input.
As you say, generating a table of contents and summary alone will not be of value.
Interacting with the LLM may be helpful when reading documents that are not easily understood, such as difficult technical or academic books.
Thanks for the fantastic feedback! That 'wtf?' moment you described is exactly the kind of problem I was hoping to tackle with BookWith.
You raise a really important point about the risk of lessening the reading experience. That's something I've thought about a lot. My personal experience while using it has been that it can actually deepen immersion, since I'm able to look up a word or phrase instantly without breaking my flow and switching to a browser.
You're absolutely right that this is a new kind of reading experience powered by LLMs, and there are bound to be some downsides. I hope it's an interesting experiment, and I'd be thrilled if you gave it a try.
Because we've been mainly targeting business and technical books, the spoiler-prevention feature is not yet implemented.
However, to make novels and other narratives comfortable to read in the future, I'll definitely consider adding a feature to limit the AI's knowledge based on your reading progress.
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.