Preface: This is a Chatbook
This book is a chatbook. The actual contents of this book begin from the next chapter. If you don't know what a chatbook is, then you should continue reading this chapter.
In order to write this book, in September 2025, I came up with the idea of a new kind of book. When I came up with the idea, I initially called it an AI-assisted book. Soon after, I realized that referring to this new kind of book as an AI-assisted book uses too many words. So, I decided to call it a chatbook.
The term chatbook is a simple concatenation of two words: chat and book. This term has existed for a while now. In this simple concatenated form, it could mean a book that contains a record of a chat, or a blank book in which to record a chat.
We humans give names to concepts. Either we coin a new word or we use an existing word as the name of the concept. I am using the term chatbook in a very specific sense and this chapter elaborates that concept and its meaning.
In this chapter, I'll explain what a chatbook is, outline its key features and uses, and discuss why it is beneficial.
What is a Chatbook?
A chatbook is a very different kind of book. Just like a traditional book, a chatbook has chapters and each chapter has sections.
The key difference is that a chatbook enables a conversation between the author and reader with the assistance of a modern AI-based chatbot, abbreviated as chatbot.
Every chapter in the book can be regarded as a separate conversation. Alternatively, it could be regarded as a continuation of a previous conversation.
Every paragraph in a chapter expresses one thought within the conversation.
As is the case with traditional books, a reader reads the paragraph, understands what it says, and then proceeds to read the next paragraph. This is the normal conversation between the author and the reader. It is true that the author never hears what the reader says in that moment. This aspect is the same in a chatbook.
Unlike in a traditional book, each paragraph also serves as a prompt for a chatbot. The reader, after reading the paragraph and understanding it, should copy the paragraph and paste it as a prompt to the chatbot.
When the chatbot is prompted in this way, it will respond to the contents of the paragraph.
The chatbot will produce its response in text form and provide it to the user, and also may provide suggestions for further interactions.
The reader is free to take up those suggestions. If the reader takes up one of those suggestions, then the reader is having a conversation with the chatbot.
The reader may continue to the next paragraph, thereby continuing the conversation with the author.
The author crafts each paragraph in a way that it is understandable to the reader, and can also be fed as a prompt to the chatbot.
When reading a chatbook, it is essential that the reader give each paragraph as a prompt to the chatbot. This is so that the chatbot is always included in the conversation. Future technological innovations may simplify and automate this. But for now, copy-paste is the mechanism.
Instead of saying "reading a chatbook", we say "using a chatbook". The phrase indicates a significantly higher level of activity, participation, and interaction than what happens when reading a traditional book.
Required Setup
The setup described here is based on a Windows desktop or laptop computer, with a monitor or screen, a keyboard, and a mouse. Use the latest version of Windows which includes features like the Edge browser, Copilot, and Voice Access. If you have some other kind of computer, then you will need to figure out an equivalent setup on your machine.
Familiarize yourself with using the Copilot application.
Familiarize yourself with using Copilot within the Edge browser.
Instructions for Using Chatbooks
Here is a step-wise process to use a chatbook.
- Read each paragraph.
- Think about it.
- Enter it as a prompt to the chatbot.
- Specifically, use the Copilot application as the chatbot.
- Do not use the Copilot embedded in the browser.
- Why? Because the Copilot embedded in the browser uses the webpage as its context, and we do not desire this. The context to the chatbot should be exactly what we explicitly provide. This automatically happens when we enter one prompt at a time. A future version of Copilot may provide a setting to ignore the webpage contents as context.
- That said, a browser embedded Copilot can be used with any webpage, and hence it can be used to analyze a chatbook. But that is different kind of chat; not the one intended by the term chatbook. For more information, see the "Additional Information and Tips" section in this chapter.
- Read its response.
- Proceed to the next paragraph.
A Short Example
The following five paragraphs demonstrate such a conversation. Try it using the instructions provided in the previous section.
What is wage slavery?
What are the causes of wage slavery?
Give me an example illustrating the real problems of wage slavery.
What do you think can be done to eliminate wage slavery?
Wage slavery can be eliminated by implementing guaranteed income for all unemployed adults, and the amount of this income is set equal to 75% of the minimum-wage income. This proposal solves the problem of technology induced unemployment. This also contributes in solving the retirement problem. This guaranteed income should be entirely funded through wealth-based taxes. This eliminates the motive to mistreat employees or to eliminate them in order to boost profits, accumulate more wealth, and become richer by using these means.
The five paragraphs above constitute an entire chapter in a chatbook. Let me explain how this conversation goes.
A reader reads the first question and forms a mental answer to that question.
Then the reader poses the same question to the chatbot (that is, copy-paste the question to chatbot). To this the chatbot gives a response. This response is like the author giving the response. The reader reads this response and understands it as a perspective from the author.
A reader might pose the same question again to the chatbot. To this the chatbot will respond with a differently worded response, which could contain perspective not included in the original response. This makes it a three-way conversation.
The second paragraph is a question. Its interaction is similar to the interaction of the first paragraph.
The third paragraph is a request to do something (Specifically, it asks for an illustrative example). The reader may or may not know of an example. However, when that request is posted to the chatbot, the chatbot produces an example. If the same paragraph is posed again, the chatbot produces another example. This is very useful in understanding the situation with different examples.
The fourth paragraph is again a question. And its interaction is similar to that of any other question.
The fifth and the final paragraph is lengthy. In it the author lays out a solution. A reader, upon reading this paragraph, forms their own opinion about the proposed solution. When the reader poses this paragraph to the chatbot, the chatbot provides its own response to it. The reader can read this particular perspective from the chatbot. The reader could also paste the same paragraph again as a prompt to the chatbot and get yet another perspective.
Advantages and Uses
Having experienced the short example given above, you will notice the following advantages of chatbooks over traditional books (and these are the uses of a chatbook).
A chatbook relieves the author from stating information that a chatbot can provide. In the short example given above, all paragraphs except the last one are instances where the author is using knowledge and scenarios that are already available to the chatbot. The author is relieved of the responsibility of repeating these known facts and opinions.
Since an author is no longer writing pages and pages worth of existing information, a chatbook highlights the author's original contribution. This is the last paragraph in our short example.
A chatbook engages the reader with the subject matter by involving the reader in an actual conversation. The reader can introduce their own questions and comments in the conversation and get responses.
Every "use" of a chatbook is unique. The chatbot does not always produce the same wording or the same example. Try issuing the third paragraph, in our short example, as a prompt repeatedly to the chatbot.
When a chatbook gets used, the information (news and knowledge) that was not available at the time of writing the chatbook can also participate in the conversation.
A chatbook conversation can deduce and reveal the consequences of author's ideas. For instance, in the short example, in almost all instances of the conversation, the chatbot points out that the proposal does not eliminate the incentive to work and earn at least minimum wages or possibly more. This enables the author to focus on the core of the argument without worrying that readers might overlook the consequences.
A chatbook is significantly smaller in size as compared to a traditional book.
With all these advantages combined, a chatbook provides a richer experience than a traditional book.
Additional Information and Tips
Each related set of prompts is in a separate section.
Even the paragraphs between the chapter heading and the first section heading serve as prompts. They are prompts in a section called "Chapter Intro"; though the section is not explicitly named.
Chapter headings and section headings are not prompts to the chatbot. They are only for the reader.
The first paragraph in a chapter will typically be used to introduce the subject matter of the chapter which also serves to provide the context to the chatbot. This paragraph will also contain some instructions directed at the chatbot.
When viewing a chatbook chapter in a webpage, you can ask a browser-embedded chatbot (e.g. Copilot embedded in the browser) to summarize that chapter.
You could also ask the chatbot to respond with the following kinds of prompts:
- What are your thoughts on the ideas mentioned in the webpage?
- Give a critical evaluation of the ideas mentioned in the webpage.
- Give a supportive evaluation of the ideas mentioned in the webpage.
You can repeatedly prompt with the same prompts and get different perspectives from the chatbot.
Instead of supplying prompts one at a time, asking the chatbot to comment on the entire chapter is viewing the same material from a different lens. Consider exploring all chapters using this lens too.
You don't have to copy and paste your prompts; you can type them in.
Familiarize yourself with how Copilot saves your conversations.
Familiarize yourself with using Voice Access to speak and get your speech translated into text so that the resulting text is placed directly into a document or a browser search area or in the Copilot application.
I do not recommend using the Copilot's microphone to speak your prompts directly into Copilot. Why? Because it makes Copilot respond back using speech rather than text. It is my opinion that it is better to have Copilot respond in text rather than speech.
However, you can use Microsoft's "Voice Access" to speak the prompts, let voice access convert your speech to text and that text gets entered into Copilot's input text area. That way, you can speak, Copilot receives text as input, and hence it does not respond with speech.
You can write your own chatbooks.
Parting Thoughts
Before September 27, 2025, if one were to search for "what is a chatbook?" or ask that question to one of the AI chatbot, you would not find any information that I have described here. Wikipedia had no entry for "chatbook" on that date. I published this book on my website on September 27, 2025. Eventually, information about the chatbook concept described here should become more widely available.
Ironically, this chapter in this book is written in the traditional way a chapter is written; it is for the consumption by the reader; it is not for a conversation with a chatbot. This is very similar to the "bootstrapping problem in computing".
While it may seem ironic, writing this chapter in the traditional way is necessary because AI chatbots could not have answered "what is a chatbook?" before this chapter was written. Some human has to do the thinking, ideation, invention, or innovation, then document it, and finally make that information publicly available so that the AI chatbots can know about it. After that the chatbots become capable of answering the question "what is a chatbook?"
All remaining chapters in this book are in the chatbook sense as described in this chapter.