To consistently describe the forms of Extended Intelligence, Marshall Mc Luhan’s dictum was sought to be applied: the “Medium is the message.” The body of knowledge, its physical form, affects the content.
So here is an opportunity to develop an innovative format, the AI-book, with some distinctive features:
- it is a digital book, accessible on the web in the cloud and integrated with Artificial Intelligence functions
- Is a living book, in the sense that it is not printed once and for all, but can grow, evolve, adapt
- offers readers a traditional linear table of contents, but also an adaptive index, which offers the topics consistent with different reader profiles: journalists, teachers, artists, entrepreneurs, computer scientists, philosophers.
- It also introduces the experience of conversational reading, in the function of a “dialogos” with a synthetic agent who impersonates the author and dialogues with the reader by proposing through questions and answers of individual passages of the text
- Use machine translation for multilingual version
- Allows the content to be enjoyed in audiobook form as well, through speech synthesis
Consistent with the principle of Homo Extensus, the AI-book is not a book written by AI or with AI, but a text written by a human author using AI features to enhance the reader’s experience. It should be noted, however, that in the European regulatory context, copyright protection does not extend to works that are entirely machine-generated, thus, for example, books written by AI, but only to those in which human intervention takes a decisive role in the creative process.
Publishing has not always existed in human history: it originated with Gutenberg’s printing press, evolved with television and radio publishers, and may be overwhelmed today by global digital platforms, which are disintermediating users from large content publishers. We therefore place the AI-book project in the vein of the evolution of mutant publishing, looking for new species that can survive and thrive in the coming digital ecosystem of Artificial Intelligence.
The AI-Book “Homo Extensus” is a first of its kind but opens up a possible format applicable in nonfiction, educational publishing and other literary genres.
One of the most interesting opportunities is the possible development of new literary forms, in which new authors and new movements will measure themselves against the possibilities expressed by artificial intelligence.
Italiano