’A Reading Group Produces Conversation, Surprise, Challenge, Emotional Commitment‘: Reading in the AI Era

By Gabriela García Calderón Orbe, Trans By Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Technology and online life have changed reading habits and, sometimes, the immediacy screens provide has displaced printed books which are a slower and more selective space.

Although it’s true that digital access has increased the possibilities of reading, it’s also true that it has broken up attention, and has make the act of reading compete with multiple simultaneous stimuli, that sometimes are more attractive

Even so, fans of reading, whether on paper or on screens, still exist, and they look for spaces to share their love for reading and discuss what they read, aiming to expand their perspective and generate community.

One of those spaces is Leamos (Let’s read), a group that brings together friends, and sometimes friends we haven’t met yet, to talk about books and good literature, to motivate their careers or reflect about their lives. We spoke with Benjamín Edwards, a specialist in marketing and the creator of Leamos, about this and other initiatives.

Global Voices (GV): In a context where artificial intelligence (AI) offers immediate information and content. What spaces do you think deep reading occupies? Or reading, in general?

Benjamín Edwards (BE): Reading is a space where chronological time is replaced by another one, a mental time that surrenders the rhythm of what’s read. Imagination aims to put context, scents, colors, intentions to a narration with its characters. When it’s an academic text, the brains get set up to understand and broaden the limits of knowledge. In both situations, chronological time is the big loser, and mental time, the big winner.

GV: What does a reading group provide — conversations, shared interpretation — that no AI can replace?

BE: Conversation, contribution, surprise, challenge, emotional commitment. In short, a human group has qualities such as emotional restraint.

The group can feel enthusiasm, which encourages participation, but also boredom, which forces the moderator to use strategies to reactivate it. AI can simulate or sum up, and that’s very useful for a job or to satisfy short term curiosity. There are people who use their own simulation abilities to ask personal questions without exposing themselves to human comment, something similar to talking to a mirror. A human group, such as this reading group, creates spaces where thoughts and conversations are synchronized, where there is solidarity, a space to propose ideas that seem to come out of a magician hat.

AI is unable to do that, at least, for now.

GV: From your perspective as a marketing and advertising specialist, is reading still a key tool for critical thinking in the algorithm era in a world increasingly mediated by AI?

BE: Yes, sure. Many people note that the key to AI on personal use level is the prompt, the instruction in text expressed with natural language that describes the task an AI must do. And it can be true, someone who knows how to ask a question is someone with critical thinking. But that doesn’t replace the ability to work on an idea, elaborating it, testing it, and in this process, correcting it, changing it, and raising it again. The answer is not the only goal; the process of discovery is just as important. AI works on development, it estranges us from our idea, which becomes “its idea,” and then “that” idea is not ours anymore, and we take it, without having being part of the process. AI is a lot of help, but it doesn’t replace anything from the deepest of our critical and creative potential. And if we look to replace that potential, we lose a part of our humanity.

GV: How did the idea of Leamos come up?

BE: I’m a long-time reader; I read and write. I sum up some books in notepads and reflect about those summaries. I always knew that there are many books to be read. We, readers, are not visible, basically because reading is a lonesome activity. There are clubs, yes, but always focused in one book, and analysis and comments revolve around that book. There also exists the stigma that there are sensible readers and sensible readings, and other light ones. Somewhere in September 2024, I wrote an invitation on LinkedIn for people who love reading, without style bias, and I proposed creating a club. That day Club Leamos was created.

GV: What activities the group has?

BE: The base of the club are weekly online sessions, where people from any country can participate, usually in Peru time. In each session, three or four participants present a book to the rest of participants, and, after a brief summary, they answer three questions: what’s the book about, why did you like it and why should everybody read it? Therefore, the key is that the community participates actively in presentations and comments. We also have other activities that have emerged from the community members: literary secret friend (an event we had for Christmas similar to a secret Santa, but with books), real-life meetings in bookshops and cafés, visits to places with literary history, etc.

GV: Tell us about the podcast La biblioteca imaginaria (The imaginary library).

BE: It’s a natural evolution, the podcast has the format of a conversation in which two guests, who I choose from the club, participate. They present a book and we talk about it and the relationships that emerge from that.

GV: What plans do you have for Leamos?

BE: I’d love for it to expand in Latin America. The readers are stunning, not only in what they suggest and recommend, but also in their proposals about creating ideas that enhance the relationship in the community, between them and the books.

GV: If someone wants to join the group, what do they have to do?

BE: Contact me via my profile on LinkedIn.

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Previously Published on globalvoices.org with Creative Commons License