Millie’s Library says AI will change reading, not replace it

Millie’s Library used its 10th-anniversary conference in Seoul to argue that artificial intelligence will change how people read, but not replace reading itself. CEO Jung Jae-wook asked whether people would still be reading books in 10 years, then answered: “The way we read will change, but we will still be reading books. AI creates answers, but reading creates questions.” The gathering was part of the digital reading service’s anniversary program and was framed around the future of reading in the AI era. It brought together speakers from philosophy, data science, cognitive psychology and literature, and included lecture and dialogue sessions as well as a book talk on “Bookkeeper,” a special anniversary project. Jung argued that AI can already summarize an entire book in seconds and produce an answer almost instantly, a sharp contrast with the earlier habit of piecing together portal search results. He said reading would become less about owning books and more about accessing them, more social and interactive, and potentially extended by AI and wearable technologies into experiences that are heard and seen. Anna Rosling, the data expert and Gapminder co-founder, told the conference that people are systematically wrong about the world and often overestimate both human pessimism and the pace of technological progress. She cited a comparison in which AI chatbots scored above 80 percent on multiple-choice questions, while only 17 percent of human respondents did better than random guessing. In her view, that shift should free people to spend more time understanding, interpreting and making wise decisions. Cognitive psychologist Kim Kyung-il offered a more literary defence of reading. In a lecture titled “Reading Therapy: Building Mental Strength,” he said reading is moving from acquiring information to learning how to connect it, and argued that information that is too complete can reduce brain activity. By contrast, books leave gaps for readers to fill with imagination, inference and metaphor, something he said becomes more important as AI gets better at handling knowledge and established patterns. Kim said humans are overtaken by AI when it comes to information, and that imagination is the last door left for breaking out of fixed patterns. He urged readers to train themselves to connect knowledge by reading books rich in metaphor, and linked that skill to unexpected ideas and inventions across science, scholarship, strategy and business. The company’s own scale underlined the point. Founded in 2016, Millie’s Library says it has passed 10 million subscribers, with members logging more than 19.87 billion minutes of reading time and averaging 6.8 books a month. The broader market is already testing how AI can sit alongside reading rather than stand apart from it. A recent JoongAng Daily report said AI is being used to suggest titles and guide readers through books in real time at bookstores, libraries and e-book platforms, including Millie’s Library’s own conversational “Read with AI” service. The company says the tool is meant to lower the barrier to reading and enable deeper reading experiences, and that usage has been especially strong among women in their 20s and 30s, who made up 50 percent of users over the past year.