I’ve written about Semantic Reader before but have recently noticed a few features I didn’t mention in my last post (I don’t think they’re new, just new to me).
Here they are.
Ask This Paper is the ability to ask a language model to provide summaries to the kinds of questions you might ask before deciding whether to read a paper in the first place. It’s not available for all papers, and shows up automatically alongside the abstract for those papers it applies to.
In the screenshot below, you can see the answer to the question: What is the goal of this paper. You’re given two responses, generated from two different models, along with a selection of the supporting statements used to inform the response to the question. There’s also a way for you to give feedback about which response is better.
By default, the Skimming highlights (see below) present the Goal, Method, and Results highlights in the order in which they appear. However, I find it confusing to read the highlights in this way, jumping between different sections. I recently realised you could turn some types of highlights off with the Settings option.
In the screenshot below, I’ve turned off Method and Results in the first column, then Goals and Results in the second column, then Goals and Methods in the third column. I find this is a much easier way to get an overall sense of the paper.
There you go. Nothing new, but a useful update if you’re not familiar with Semantic Reader and it’s features.