Press
Interview with Zou Zou
1. What have you been busy with lately?
I’ve been testing the openness and convenience of the software lately. We plan to offer free tools to people who require speed reading with effect from April 23, World Book Day. AI is able to highlight the reading focus of any text based on a specified ratio such as 30% or 50%.
2. What was your original intention for developing “Gu Zhen Xiao Jian”?
The first was to improve general education in China. I’m a person who finds general knowledge extremely interesting. I’ve always hoped to master the encyclopedia, and rapidly sift out key knowledge, enabling me to read the books I want to read in my lifetime in just one year (1,800 books in general). The second was that I’ve been a literary editor for 15 years, and honestly, the content of many works are quite poor in substance. There’s a 20/80 rule overseas. What that means is that the substantive content of a book is only about 20%.
3. What’s the biggest challenge or difficulty “Gu Zhen Xiao Jian” has encountered?
How to make it widely known.
4. Compared to a normal bestseller list, what are the pros and cons of an AI generated bestseller list?
Inability to judge whether the quality of the language is good or bad. When a banal and pedestrian essay is placed together with an unconventional piece of work, it can’t tell the difference like that of an experienced editor at the language level. What AI can determine are things like the sense of rhythm in the narrative, whether the distribution of joy and sorrow is reasonable, and whether emotional ebbs and flows conform to the pattern of human feelings.
5. Will AI have an impact on reading in the future?
Yes. I’ve actually thought about directly signing contracts with authors for the reading guides they have written which have fully substantive content. Everyone’s time is very precious.
6. As an author, will your writing be affected by AI as well?
Not when I’m writing, but it will affect the revision process. Elsewhere, it won’t have an impact when I’m exploring literary forms but it will have an effect when I’m writing novels with a strong storyline.
Zou Zou will be speaking at the StoryDrive conference in Beijing (28 May - 1 June 2019).