I struggle to understand the pushback against AI features. As long as the feature isn't intrusive, it seems like a minor addition, and may even be useful to some people. LLMs are here to stay, there is no denying that at this point.
I think it adds value. Having a conversation with/around a book/document with an AI is a good use case, and having that feature as a not forced option in a book management solution a good match.
It is not something that works regardless if we configure or activate it or not. It may broaden the AI use for people that find that useful? Yes. Would that end being dependency on a particular provider? Maybe on how we use it. At some point a lot of those decisions were taken in the past by most of the rest, like using search engines or a narrow/builtin set of browsers or desktop/mobile OSs. If using AIs is a concern then the ship has sailed long ago for many bigger things already.
The addition doesn't really bother me because Calibre is already full of features that seem utterly useless, so I trust its author to add new stuff without ruining the parts that are useful to me. Still, does anyone actually use "ChatGPT bolted onto the ebook reader" type features for anything besides cheating on school assignments? Lack of web search tools makes them suboptimal for asking clarifying questions or getting recommendations. Makes some sense on a Kindle where you can't exactly alt-tab to ask ChatGPT directly, not so much in a desktop application.
Not to say that there's no use case (I'd be interested to try a LLM-aided notetaking tool), just that adding a chat box is hardly a feature.
> After much pushback, it looks as though users will get the ability to hide the feature from calibre's user interface, but LLM-driven features are here to stay and more will likely be added over time.
With the whole "no local models?! mega corp censorship!" complaint sidestepped from day 1, and now that it's not even shown on the UI, what will AI opponents complain about?!
4 comments
[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 23.3 ms ] threadIt is not something that works regardless if we configure or activate it or not. It may broaden the AI use for people that find that useful? Yes. Would that end being dependency on a particular provider? Maybe on how we use it. At some point a lot of those decisions were taken in the past by most of the rest, like using search engines or a narrow/builtin set of browsers or desktop/mobile OSs. If using AIs is a concern then the ship has sailed long ago for many bigger things already.
Not to say that there's no use case (I'd be interested to try a LLM-aided notetaking tool), just that adding a chat box is hardly a feature.
With the whole "no local models?! mega corp censorship!" complaint sidestepped from day 1, and now that it's not even shown on the UI, what will AI opponents complain about?!