Reader Bot: What Happens When AI Reads and Why It Matters

A talk and conversation with Naomi S. Baron, author of Reader Bot: What Happens When AI Reads and Why It Matters (Stanford University Press)

What do we stand to gain — and lose — when we let AI read for us?

AI can already scan, interpret, and summarize human-authored texts with startling fluency. But before AI can write, it has to read — and that “reading” isn’t the same as human reading. In Reader Bot, Naomi S. Baron explores what changes when we hand over a deeply human activity to bots: how AI reshapes the amount, ways, and reasons we read, and what it means for literacy, learning, and culture in a world optimized for efficiency.

This event is for anyone curious (or uneasy) about the growing role of AI in everyday reading — from emails and articles to books, classrooms, and research.

For more information about Reader Bot, visit the Stanford University Press page here. 

About Naomi Baron: 

Professor Naomi S. Baron is Professor Emerita of Linguistics at American University (Washington, DC) and an internationally recognized authority on language, reading, and technology. A Guggenheim Fellow, Fulbright Fellow, and Fulbright Specialist, she is the author of major books including Always On, Words Onscreen, How We Read Now, and Who Wrote This? Her work has been featured in The New York Times, the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Lit Hub, The New Republic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Conversation, and many other outlets