Ghostreader in Readwise Reader

Posted by Paul Korm
Nov 12, 2022 at 04:43 PM

I’ve been using Readwise’s Reader app for a few months, and find it far more than a “read later” app, with an increasing number of very useful features. (Not to mention that highlights and notes captured in Reader flow through Readwise’s integration with Obsidian so that those notes and highlights end up there.)

This week Reader introduced a feature the team is calling “Ghostreader”. Built on OpenAI’s GPT-3 API, Ghostreader can be invoked on any selection in an article saved to Reader. When invoked it offers several choices: define, encyclopedia lookup, translate, term lookup, explain (rewrite in simpler language), summarize, add whimsical prompts, flashcard, plus an option to add one’s own templates with custom prompts.

Many of these are not news—software on most platforms offer these options when words in text are selected. The cool thing about Ghostreader is that it provides the answer tailored to the context of the highlighted text. So, Ghostreader explains “primeval” with one focus in the context of an article discussion Genesis, and with a different focus in an article discussing Evangeline.

This is a more than a cheap trick; it’s like having a private research assistant looking over your shoulder as you read, ready to point out things you might have missed in understanding the reading.