Laura Kipnis recounts how she got involved with Rebind, an AI-powered service that seasons public domain classics with original human commentary so that readers can not just read, but be in conversation with a book. This service sprouted out of a plumbing magnate John Dubuque’s desire to better understand weighty tomes like Being and Time by Martin Heidegger and Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead.
My role, the email explained, would involve recording original commentary on a “great book”—Clancy suggested Romeo and Juliet, though it could be any classic in the public domain. This commentary would somehow be implanted in the text and made interactive: Readers would be able to ask questions and AI-me would engage in an “ongoing conversation” with them about the book. We’d be reading buddies. Proposing me for Romeo and Juliet did strike me as subversively funny—my “expertise” on romantic tragedy consists of having once written a somewhat controversial anti-marriage polemic titled Against Love. I’ve also written, a bit ironically, about the muddle of sexual consent codes, which I supposed could prove relevant. Juliet was, after all, only 13. These days, Romeo (probably around 16—we’re not precisely told) would risk being called a predator.
The Rebind catalog is evolving by the day: James Wood (Chekhov), Margaret Atwood (Tale of Two Cities), and Marlon James (Huck Finn) have recently been added. Dubuque and Kaag had been thinking mainly about philosophy titles, until they realized how many different kinds of books and conversations there could be. Which was when they realized how big Rebind could be: “Not just big,” Dubuque said, “but a landmark event.” The spiritual category will be especially huge, he thinks: Currently contracted luminaries include Deepak Chopra and Bessel van der Kolk, the trauma expert who wrote The Body Keeps the Score—five years on the bestseller list. They will also, of course, Rebind the Bible, probably from multiple vantages.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/qYUyPRn
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/gZX46oR
