At current, there are a number of circumstances wherein authors are suing AI firms for scraping their works with out fee or permission. Whereas these authorized battles have been occurring, Amazon has quietly added a brand new AI characteristic to its Kindle iOS app—a characteristic that “helps you to ask questions concerning the e-book you’re studying and obtain spoiler-free solutions,” in response to an Amazon announcement.

The corporate says the characteristic, which is named Ask this E-book, serves as “your skilled studying assistant, immediately answering questions on plot particulars, character relationships, and thematic parts with out disrupting your studying circulate.”

Publishing business useful resource Publishers Lunch seen Ask this E-book earlier this week, and requested Amazon about it. Amazon spokesperson Ale Iraheta informed PubLunch, “The characteristic makes use of expertise, together with AI, to offer immediate, spoiler-free solutions to prospects’ questions on what they’re studying. Ask this E-book offers brief solutions primarily based on factual details about the e-book that are accessible solely to readers who’ve bought or borrowed the e-book and are non-shareable and non-copyable.”

As PubLunch summed up: “In different phrases, talking plainly, it’s an in-book chatbot.”

Amazon didn’t reply PubLunch’s questions on “what rights the corporate was relying upon to execute the brand new characteristic was not answered, nor did they elaborate on the technical particulars of the service and any protections concerned (whether or not to stop in opposition to hallucinations, or to guard the textual content from AI coaching).”

Maybe most alarmingly, the Amazon spokesperson mentioned, “To make sure a constant studying expertise, the characteristic is at all times on, and there’s no possibility for authors or publishers to choose titles out.”

It additionally sounds as if authors and publishers have been, for essentially the most half, not notified of this characteristic’s existence.

Amazon is already within the information this week for its flawed AI recaps of tv reveals. After a Fallout recap was “rubbish full of errors,” as io9 referred to as it, the corporate paused the characteristic. An analogous factor occurred earlier this yr with Amazon’s AI dubs for anime sequence.

As PubLunch says of Ask this E-book, “Many rightsholders and creators are doubtless to not need an in-book chatbot with out their particular evaluation and approval (or in any respect), and we count on that message will probably be getting delivered to publishers and Amazon loud and clear within the ensuing days. And many individuals would deem the outputs of generative AI analyzing a specific copyrighted work because the very embodiment of a spinoff work (or just a direct infringement).”

Ask this E-book is at present solely obtainable within the Kindle iOS app within the US, however Amazon says it “will come to Kindle units and Android OS subsequent yr.”