"Artificial intelligence (AI) cannot replace reading. AI makes answers, but reading makes questions."
Jeong Jae-uk, head of kt Millie Seojae, said at the 10th anniversary conference held at Coex in Seoul on the 3rd, "The more AI advances, the more important the value of reading will become." The event, held under the theme "The reading future: A blueprint for reading illuminated at the heart of the AI era," was organized to present the meaning of reading as it changes in the AI era and the direction of reading in the future.
In a keynote address that day, Jeong said that over the past 10 years the reading experience "has expanded from ownership to access, from search to discovery, from concentration to everyday life, from a single format to multiple formats, and from reading alone to reading together." Reading has shifted from owning a book and then reading it to accessing a book at the moment of need, and the reading experience has broadened to enjoying it in various forms in daily life and sharing thoughts with others, the explanation said.
Amid these changes, he predicted that AI will become a new inflection point for reading. "As AI searches and summarizes information to provide answers, the process of information exploration itself is changing, so the value of future reading will grow as an experience that goes beyond simply reading to asking one's own questions, thinking, and understanding others and the world," he said.
On this basis, he presented five themes for how reading will change in the AI era: "reading without borders," "reading that understands me," "conversational reading," "reading that consolidates with one another," and "reading created together."
"Reading without borders" means a reading experience that extends across various devices and environments, continuing without constraints of place and time. "Reading that understands me" refers to reading in which AI understands changes in an individual's reading tastes and interests and helps discover new books. "Conversational reading" is reading that expands thinking by asking questions about books and exploring diverse perspectives through interaction with AI.
Next, "reading that consolidates with one another" describes readers reading together and sharing thoughts mediated by the same books and tastes, while the final "reading created together" captures a future in which writers, publishers, platforms, and readers are consolidated and create content and a reading ecosystem.
Millie's library emphasized that these five future modes of reading are not realized individually, but are created through consolidation and cooperation among the various actors that make up the reading ecosystem, including readers, writers, publishers, and platforms.
After the keynote, lectures and talks by experts from diverse fields such as philosophy, data, cognitive psychology, and literature followed. From a book talk featuring works by contributing writers to Millie's library's 10th anniversary special anthology "Bookkeeper" to sessions highlighting the value of reading and thinking in the AI era, the event shed light on the direction of future reading culture.