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I recently wrote about installing Calibre on Linux the official way. Calibre made news recently for rolling out new AI “features” in the comprehensive open source ebook management program (ironically it was an article about the new AI features which prompted me to open Calibre for the first time in a few weeks to check if they were non-obtrusive, which in turn led to my investigation of different installation methods). From Sourav Rudra for Its FOSS:

Beyond that, this release introduces two additional AI-powered features. The first one is a book discussion feature where Calibre can answer questions about any book in your library through a simple right-click menu, and the second is a reading recommendation system that suggests similar books based on your selection.

My writings here and on NLJ betray my largely negative view of the current AI trends. Regarding Calibre, AI functionality is not enabled by default insofar as one would have to affirmatively choose (or “opt-in” in alternative parlance) to selecting a language model (Calibre comes pre-configured with four external options and the option to use a local model). If one wants to go the extra mile, it is possible to disable the five AI/LLM plugins entirely, although that is not necessary as far as ensuring that Calibre is not talking to external LLMs.

Calibre menu plugins listing default AI providers (GitHubAI, GoogleAI, LMStudio, OllamaAI, OpenRouter).
Default AI provider plugins in Calibre. While they are “enabled,” they do not do anything unless one is actually configured as the AI provider (insofar as I understand).
Calibre menu plugins listing default AI providers (GitHubAI, GoogleAI, LMStudio, OllamaAI, OpenRouter). They have been disabled.
The AI provider plugins cannot be “removed” but they can be disabled, although disabling them does not at this time make a practical difference.

The only evidence of AI without enabling the features is that there is an “Ask AI” option on the right click context menu for individual books, which does not do anything without a model configured but should (in my opinion) be able to be disabled (if for no other reason than removing clutter). While I am not interested in the AI “features,” I will submit that so long as they are not enabled by default, I see no reason to flee Calibre, which I use for managing my ebook library and metadata, sending books to my PocketBook ereaders, and converting between different ebook formats (I do not use Calibre as a reader). Here, my take is similar to Firefox, which I still use as my primary browser while ensuring that AI and other unwanted features are disabled. As far as Calibre’s features themselves go, the ebook recommendation idea is not terrible and I could see it being somewhat useful with a well-configured local model (not that I am an expert in this area, mind you), although it is not something that interests me. Asking AI about individual books is questionable (to put it mildly), especially when there are many full-text search options for finding text in a Calibre library (not to mention built-in highlighting features for people who use Calibre as a reader).