One last thing about the Calibre thing for now, then I promise I'll take a break until I can coalesce some of these thoughts into something more coherent.
Anyway, @whitequark drew an interesting contrast between Calibre adding AI conversations and KeePassXC allowing slopcode in the repo.





)
Cassandra is only carbon now
in reply to Cassandra is only carbon now • • •Cassandra is only carbon now
in reply to Cassandra is only carbon now • • •By contrast, Calibre adding "AI conversations" with books fundamentally alters the relationship that users, presumably readers!, have with the works in their libraries.
Of course, as an author, you can't ever stop someone from doing whatever they want with copies of your book. The impulse to do so is toxic af and leads to shit like DRM. That doesn't obligate you to *help* anyone do any specific thing with your books, though.
Cassandra is only carbon now
in reply to Cassandra is only carbon now • • •Here, Calibre, in one release, went from a tool readers can use to, well, read, to a tool that fundamentally views books as textureless content, no more than the information contained within them. Anything about presentation, form, perspective, voice, is irrelevant to that view. Books are no longer art, they're ingots of tin to be melted down.
Some people will always do that with books. It's why Cliff Notes was profitable back in the day, and it's why in some crowds, AI is popular now.