When a flattering email arrived inviting me to participate in an AI venture called Rebind that I'd later come to think will radically transform the entire way booklovers read books, I felt pretty sure it was a scam.
For one thing, the sender was Clancy Martin, a writer and philosophy professor I didn't know personally but vaguely recalled had written about his misspent youth as a small-time jewelry-biz con artist, also being a serial liar in his love life. For another, they were offering to pay me. "Clancy up to his old ways!" I thought.
My role, the email explained, would involve recording original commentary on a "great book"—Clancy suggested Romeo and Juliet, though it could be any classic in the public domain.
This commentary would somehow be implanted in the text and made interactive: Readers would be able to ask questions and AI-me would engage in an "ongoing conversation" with them about the book. We'd be reading buddies.
The whole project was the brainchild of a mysterious millionaire named John Dubuque. My scam antennae vibrated, although a bunch of decidedly illustrious participants had apparently already signed on: Margaret Atwood, Marlon James, Roxane Gay, and Lena Dunham, among them.
Even if it was technically feasible and Dubuque was legit, did I really want to be involved in this? I needed to learn more, so I—Laura Kipnis—decided to report from the inside.
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