This is one of the areas where LLMs are really useful. At their core they aren’t “thinking” so much as transforming and reorienting data.

What’s been most valuable for me is the way they create a kind of imperfect but effective Socratic dialogue with whatever I’m reading. I was the kid who always had my hand up in class, not to show off, but because I hated leaving something unexplained. Good teachers could make a text come alive by answering those questions.

LLMs give me some of that back outside the classroom. Even when I ask them to speculate, the process forces me to interrogate the material and refine my own model of it. That’s changed how I read, learn, and even how I experience novels.

So innovation on this “Socratic interface” and other interfaces is pointed in the right direction.

As a side note, I'm going through all the Le Carré novels... it is a lovely experience to be able to ask an LLM more questions about 1960s British culture, West German Cold War politics, and Le Carré's background as a diplomat/spy. A lovely way to engage with novels.

Also, Smiley is getting up their in fictional characters I admire. Not Iroh level, but up there.