- Audible’s new “Pose A question” feature allows us to listeners of the new Audio Pride & Prejudice book asking an expert in AI any question about the book.
- You can ask questions about the plot, the characters or the context without taking a break.
- Beta feature is currently available for thousands of classic and public domain titles.
If you like to listen to the drama of Regency literature but you are suddenly confused for the cutting spirit that embarrassed another character, the new audible experience has covered you.
The “poses a question” function of the audio platform is deployed in beta in tandem with a new full version of Pride and prejudicesOffering us to listeners the opportunity to ask an IA expert on the plot, the characters and even the context and the historical references while the audio book continues to play.
No need to take a break, change applications or scroll Reddit. The tool in the application that mixes the answers generated by AI with live listening.
You just press the “Ask a question” button in the audible application reader while listening to a supported audio book. Type your question, press Send, and in a few moments, you will get a concise response depending on the audio content and the external context. It is delivered quietly while the narration continues.
Although presented on the famous novel by Jane Austen, the AI tool arrives on many other public domain titles in the Audible catalog. So, you could be a half-ballroom scene, listen to a passive-aggressive little conversation, and ask what year it happens, or confirm if it is the scene where Elizabeth changes her mind, with an answer provided in front of Lady Catherine de Bourgh ends her sentence.
Audible says that the tool aims to deepen the immersion, and not to interrupt it. This is why the recitation does not stop when you send your question. Audible wants to keep you inside the novel’s velvet strings, even when you have to look outside for an answer.
IA annotations
This may seem a small adjustment, but the implications of this change are wider than a simple more flexible footnote. This is part of an increasing tendency to make listening more interactive as a way to involve people in content that is not only podcasts. Audio books have always lived in a space between books and radio.
Unlike music, you generally do not let them play in the background. But unlike the text, they cannot be viewed or friendly. You cannot highlight a sentence or hold a bookmark on a particularly well designed sentence.
Asking a question offers a kind of companion on demand, but which is not intrusive. Classical literature is often approached with its own time travel baggage: unknown slang, social rules specific to periods and whole arcs of the intrigue which depend on the laws on the inheritance that you have never heard of.
Being able to ask, “Why is it so serious that he doesn’t have a fortune?” Or “is this marriage normal for the time?” Can transform a confusing story into a relatable parable. And Audible hopes that nature fueled by the AI of answers will make them better and faster while keeping everything in the application.
The new feature follows other experiences from the recent Audible AI. The company has published a tool for discovery of audio books powered by AI named Maven, as well as narrative and translation tools led by AI.
There are legitimate philosophical questions on the question of whether these types of tools devalue reading. Whether AI has externalized the learning that we must make when reading old books, or the possibility of finding our own interpretations. This could be the case. But sometimes you just want to know who Charlotte Lucas got married and why, before the start of the next chapter.
