Spotify has just rolled out a "Recap" feature for audiobooks. Imagine a TV series' "Last week, on Friends" montage at the start of an episode. Spotify's audiobook recap works in the exact same way.
Once you've listened to 15-20 minutes of an audiobook, Spotify generates a recap using AI. This is a tailored recap that tells you exactly what has happened, so you can pick up your book from where you left off.
The joy of reading
Spotify is the most convenient music streaming service there is, hands down. There's no other music streamer that has mastered the art of ultra-convenience, offering AI-generated playlists, Daily Mixes, and even short-form video content within the app.
But I don't think everything should be that convenient. Things feel better when you have to work for them. Making playlists is fun. Discovering your next favorite music is fun. Watching whole music videos is fun!
That's why I feel a little apprehensive about the new Recap feature. Reading is one of my favorite hobbies. I read every single day, and I look forward to my reading session. I love curling up on my reading armchair and hallucinating wildly for the next few hours. Or enjoying audiobook voice artists perform their roles admirably — that's what audiobooks are all about.
Where's the joy in an AI-generated voice reminding me of what I've missed in the story? Where's the appreciation for the author, for the art of literature, or the unbridled joy that reading brings me?
The author of the book I'm reading didn't spend multiple years of their life toiling away, painstakingly editing each word and constructing involute plots for me to offload my reading onto an AI.
I'm not just talking about reading with my eyes, by the way — this includes audiobooks, too. When you listen to audiobooks, you're still getting the novel in the way the author intended. And you get the added bonus of hearing talented actors show off their performing abilities, bringing your book to life.
I know the Recap feature is intended to make my life easier. There are some obvious reasons why this could be useful: A new book in a series is coming out, and I've forgotten what happened in the last book; I have to read a book before an event or book club; I stopped reading a book six months ago, and now I want to pick it back up.
But all these reasons feel very superficial. If I love a book series enough to read the next release, surely I have 24 hours in which I can listen to the previous book? If I need to read a book for a book club but I outsource that to an AI, why am I even going to a book club in the first place? If I stopped reading a book six months ago, why don't I just start it again to get the full story?
It also raises the question: Can AI truly convey nuance? It can't infer, it can't notice motifs and themes, and all the literary things authors spend years trying to perfect. If the AI recaps a book for me, surely it's going to miss all those little titbits of information? What if it misses the fact that the love interest brushes their hand against the main character's cheek on page 121? What if I then don't feel as attached to the characters when they do finally get together on page 345, because there's no yearning?
What do you think about the Recap feature? Let me know in the comments if you agree with me or not.
But it's not all bad... or is it?
The new Recap feature is certainly not useless. As I said earlier, there are three main reasons why this could be a good thing. A new book in a series, you have to read before an event, but don't have time, you stopped reading, and now you want to pick it back up again.
But all of these reasons forget why we read in the first place: The pure joy of literature. There's nothing like snuggling up with a good book and reading until your eyes feel like sandpaper. Or, if you're an audiobook connoisseur, listening until you fall asleep.
There's a reason why everyone I know is rewatching Stranger Things right now. Not because we're asking ChatGPT to recount the events of seasons 1-4, but because we genuinely love the show and want to experience it again.
So why would I want to recap books in the same way? We live in a society that seems to chase convenience over anything else. But what about our hobbies? Are we really going to start using AI to condense our favorite games, to tell us what happened in the local sports events, rather than watch the real thing?
I think we should be spending more time doing our hobbies now that AI is making the annoying, mundane tasks in our lives much easier. And recapping audiobooks is not something I'm ever going to be interested in.
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