09/09/2024
By Katharine Webster

Imagine having a conversation with holistic medicine guru Deepak Chopra on Buddhism.

Or with writer and culture critic Roxane Gay on Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence.” 

Or with environmentalist Bill McKibben on the writings of John Muir. 

Using Rebind, a series of AI-powered e-books co-created by Philosophy Prof. John Kaag that was named a TIME Magazine "Best Invention of 2024," students and other readers can “discuss” classic texts in literature, philosophy and spirituality with noted – even famous – authors and thinkers.

“Rebind scales up one-on-one conversations about great classics in literature and philosophy,” Kaag says. “You could not get (Booker Prize-winning Irish novelist and short story writer) John Banville to come in and discuss James Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’ one-on-one with 1,000 people, but this technology can allow 1,000 people to have meaningful interactions with Banville’s original commentary about Joyce’s book.”

The first Rebind e-books, which were inspired by Kaag’s one-on-one conversations with students at UML, became available to the public in late October. Recently, Kaag sat down to discuss Rebind and his new book, “Thinking through Writing: A Guide to Becoming a Better Writer and Thinker,” published by Princeton University Press.  

Q: What inspired Rebind, and who’s involved?

A: I truly believe that philosophy can help people live more fulfilling lives – if they can understand it.

At the same time, I’ve been really concerned about the fact that 50% of Americans struggle with literacy. Too often, students come to class without having done the reading; they’re watching the movie version of a literary classic or using SparkNotes or CliffsNotes instead. 

In spring 2023, John Dubuque, a businessman with a B.A. in philosophy who had just sold his family’s business, suggested we try to reproduce the tutorials he was doing with different philosophy professors for a wider audience, using AI chatbots. 

John asked me to provide 30 hours of audio commentary on Thoreau’s “Walden” for this new type of e-book, and we figured out how to put these conversations together, making verbatim commentary “chatable.” He then got the team out of Boston and Silicon Valley to make it happen technically and provided the startup funding.

To help choose texts and commentators, I brought in friends of mine, Clancy Martin (professor of philosophy at University of Missouri, Kansas City) and Michael Goodwin, an innovative teacher and founder of the Rivers and Revolutions education program, and we started recruiting the best and brightest from academia, arts and letters.  

Q: How does Rebind work?

A: We match a book with a public intellectual or author. Then one of us interviews that person for at least 13 hours, asking them every question we think someone might have about the text. We also make short videos of the commentator talking about the book, using locations like Walden Pond for my commentary on “Walden” and Mulligan’s Pub in Dublin for “Dubliners.”

When you actually open the e-book on your tablet or computer, you can expect to see a short video of the commentator, or “Rebinder,” introducing the book. Then you immerse yourself in the text, and more short videos and discussion boxes will pop up at key points. 

You can use the discussion boxes to ask questions verbally or to respond to suggested questions to “converse” with the Rebinder’s original commentary. Rebind’s AI will search that commentary for answers and stitch that together with generated text, but it’s completely transparent; you can always see exactly what the Rebinder said and what’s AI-generated.  We are not ingesting books or making avatars, but rather letting you explore original commentary through conversation. 

Rebind saves all of your questions and discussions in a chat history. The more you speak into it, the more you’re going to be able to see a type of journal being built out with your thoughts. That chat history also feeds back into the AI, so that what interests you in one book will then inform the discussion questions that pop up when you read more Rebind e-books. 

Q: Who is your intended audience, and why should people use Rebind instead of reading an annotated version of the book, discussing a novel in a book group, taking a college class or just reading on their own?

A: Rebind allows students and others to read very challenging books either through a subscription or individual downloads. We aim to make this as affordable as possible for students.  

The market for the classics is very large in high schools and in colleges, and our e-books can serve as a teaching tool for students who might need some extra help. There's a big difference between Rebind and SparkNotes or an annotated edition of the classics, because Rebind invites a huge amount of interaction and engagement.

The classics were the original mindfulness app, and the spiritual classics especially. There’s a hunger now for more mindfulness in education, and we’re lowering the bar for entry to understand these texts.

Besides, how many people get to interact with John Banville or Deepak Chopra or Doris Kearns Goodwin or Lena Dunham or Margaret Atwood, all of whom have signed up for this project?

I’ve heard a lot of fears from people about how AI is going to destroy the arts and humanities. But this project is headed by creatives and scholars, and it has full buy-in from a remarkable cast of authors and commentators. And readers get to explore that commentary by pursuing their own interests and questions.  

Q: Right now, you’re only doing books that are in the public domain. Where is this going next?

A: One of the logical extensions of Rebind is that eventually, once we’ve dealt with privacy and security issues, there will be a way to allow multiple users into the same discussion. Think of this as a book club with an exceptional guide who already knows the book inside and out. This functionality could be embedded in course software like Canvas or Blackboard.

In the future, I am very confident that books will be published with this sort of AI functionality. We are in negotiations with the largest international publishers to allow Rebind to publish books that are under copyright.

Q: How does Rebind tie into your new book, “Thinking Through Writing”?

A: I have, from beginning to end, been worried about writing, reading and thinking – and Rebind and my book are both about a crisis in close reading skills, critical thinking skills and writing skills, as well as the future of the humanities and their intersection with technology.

It's so cool to be able to just dream up a new way to read, write and think with technology. And I am so convinced that in five years, it’s going to be very, very normal to talk to your books.