Dive Into Briefy: exploring ai-powered content summarization

20

October

2023

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Let’s be real for a sec – who’s got the time (or energy) to go through hours of content these days? We’re all out here, drowning in a sea of never-ending tabs, articles, and videos. But I found this tool – Briefy – which was launched about a month ago, and despite being in the early stages, it holds a lot of promise to help us in our student life. 

So far, Briefy is all about keeping it simple and user-friendly. There is luckily no need to spend time on complicated stuff like API keys or prompt settings. I tried it and it’s a quick download, a Google sign-in, and installation of a (chrome) extension, and you’re ready to get summarizing (Briefy, 2023). 

So, how does it work? After having installed the Briefy extension, go to a website with a text you’d like to summarize, look for the Briefy button (appearing if the extension is activated), and a pop-up lays out all the main points in easy-to-read bullets, without having to click away from the page (Briefy, 2023).  

Even though it’s a very new tool, compared to more established ones like ChatGPT-4, Briefy shows a lot of promise for providing quality summaries and a super smooth usability. But it also comes with a couple of limitations (which I’m sure the team behind Briefy is already working on): so far, Briefy is only available on websites and is not yet able to handle very long articles, such as the academic ones we have to read. But this gives also a lot of room for improvement! Moreover, especially for more visual students, it would be amazing if Briefy developed into a tool that can not only provide us with quality summaries but also charts or mindmaps, all available to go on our phones or tablets.  

Also, when using tools like Briefy, we should keep in mind that such AI summary tools can struggle to balance between being overly general or too specific and not grasping the context or what we deem important (Altmami & Menai, 2022; Widyassari et al., 2022). Moreover, despite improvements in natural language processing, it can also still be possible that these AIs lack deep semantic understanding, meaning that the summaries provided can be technically correct, but might still miss implict meanings which are present in the original article (Silva et al., 2019).  

 So, I personally believe that this new tool isn’t just a potential timesaver; it can turn into a starter gun for deeper dives into how we consume and process with the digital world.  

Altmami, N. I., & Menai, M. E. B. (2022). Automatic summarization of scientific articles: A survey. Journal of King Saud University-Computer and Information Sciences, 34(4), 1011-1028. 

Briefy. (2023). Briefy – AI-powered content summarizer. Retrieved October 20, 2023, from https://briefy.ai/ 

Silva, V. S., Freitas, A., & Handschuh, S. (2019). On the semantic interpretability of artificial intelligence models. arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.04105.  

Widyassari, A. P., Rustad, S., Shidik, G. F., Noersasongko, E., Syukur, A., & Affandy, A. (2022). Review of automatic text summarization techniques & methods. Journal of King Saud University-Computer and Information Sciences, 34(4), 1029-1046. 

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Speechify – a text-to-speech learning experience

11

October

2023

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As students, we are all facing the same struggles. Juggling multiple courses, several deadlines and lastly reading these countless articles that help us prepare for our exams. But what if there is a way to combine multiple tasks? Today, I want to share with you a tool I have discovered that has a lot of potential to change the way we learn. It’s called Speechify, and in this blog post, I’ll take you on a journey through my experiences and what I believe can be further improved.  

As a student navigating a social life, a job that pays rent and a master program, I often found myself drowning in a sea of articles and prepping for classes or exams. Time is and has been my constant nemesis, and I wished for a way to consume all that information more efficiently. That’s when I stumbled upon Speechify (to be fair, it was an add and I am a sucker for a good marketing campaign). 

So, let me introduce to you an AI tool that has made my life easier: Speechify is a text-to-speech application that can turn written content into spoken words (Speechify, 2023). Imagine having the power to listen to your study material while commuting, cycling to campus, or even doing one of the boring household chores.  

Even though Speechify is still in its early stages, I found that I could absorb information more effectively through auditory learning (Kayalar & Kayalar, 2017). Concepts that seemed daunting on the page became clearer when I listened to them. For me, it is not just about making learning accessible; it’s about making learning flexible and adaptable to our busy lives.  

However, while Speechify is already an interesting tool, I believe there is still quite some room for improvement. One aspect I’d love to see improved is the customization options. More options to adjust the speech rate, voice, and even add natural pauses between paragraphs would make the listening experience even better, as I personally think the voices are yet a bit too generic, which makes listening to long documents sometimes a bit too tiring. Additionally, integrating AI-generated summaries or study aids, such as flashcards (e.g., similar to Brainscape) based on the content we’ve listened to could be a game-changer for students. 

In conclusion, Speechify has the potential to help students in the future to manage their time when it comes to studying more wisely and can make learning more accessible, efficient, and enjoyable. However, even though AI tools can be helpful, Qadir (2023) reminds us that they’re not perfect and can make mistakes, so it’s important not to depend on them too much and always use our own judgment. 

References

Aston. (2023). Speechify | Turn any reading into audio | TTS, AI voice over. Speechify. Retrieved from https://speechify.com/  

Kayalar, F., & Kayalar, F. (2017). The effects of auditory learning strategy on learning skills of language learners (students’ views). IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS), 22(10), 04-10. 

Qadir, J. (2023, May). Engineering education in the era of ChatGPT: Promise and pitfalls of generative AI for education. In 2023 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON) (pp. 1-9). IEEE. 

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