Transcript: ‘How to Be a Smarter Reader in the Age of AI’

The transcript of AI & I with Alex Wieckowski is below.

Timestamps

Introduction: 00:00:34
Choose physical books over e-readers to boost your memory: 00:01:36
Alex’s take on how long books will stay relevant: 00:02:54
Prompt ChatGPT to find your next read: 00:07:40
Articulating Dan’s taste in books with AI: 00:13:50
Use AI to find books tailored to solve your problems: 00:15:46
How to use AI as a personal study buddy: 00:33:32
Prompt LLMs to turn insights from books into actionable strategies: 00:41:19
What Alex’s rule around buying a new book is: 01:02:10
Alex’s advice for anyone who feels like they don’t have time to read: 01:16:36

Transcript

Dan Shipper (00:00:34)

Alex, welcome to the show.

Alex Wieckowski (00:00:35)

Thank you for having me.

Dan Shipper (00:00:36)

So, for people who don't know, you are the creator of Alex & Books where you have over a million followers across different social media platforms who come to you for book recommendations, book reviews, reading tips, all that kind of stuff, which I love because I'm a huge, huge book nerd and I'm just really excited to have you.

Alex Wieckowski (00:00:53)

It’s always great to meet people that love reading books. So happy to talk about books and especially how we could use AI.

Dan Shipper (00:01:00)

Let's do it. So I’ve got to start with books. Why do you like books so much?

Alex Wieckowski (00:01:05)

It happened like during college where I first discovered self-improvement books, which was actually the book on How to Win Friends & Influence People. I'm like, wait a second. You can learn social skills and communication skills from books, especially one book that's almost 100 years old. And that kind of just blew my mind because I thought there were only textbooks, fiction books, and poetry books. So once I learned there's this whole genre that could help you, and anything you want to learn about, it's like, well, there's a lot of things that I want to learn about, a lot of things I want to improve on. So let me read every single book I can out there to basically improve my life. So that's basically how I fell in love with self-improvement books.

Dan Shipper (00:01:40)

I love that. Are you a physical book guy? Kindle book guy? What's your book reading stack?

Alex Wieckowski (00:01:43)

So I definitely use all three. I think each of them have their pros and cons but I really love physical books, just being able to disconnect from technology. I'm a content creator, so I'm on my laptop for hours a day, I'm on my phone for hours a day, so I like just being able to take a book, a pen, and go to the park or go to the beach or something—just disconnect.

Dan Shipper (00:01:59)

I love that. I'm a huge physical book guy. I just feel like with Kindle, I sometimes read it for things where I'm doing a lot of research and I need to page through books really quickly or something like that. But I feel like all the books have the same flavor, the same taste, because it's all just on the Kindle, whereas with the physical book, it just feels like it's its own experience because it has a feel and it's got a cover image and you know, the paper feels different, all that kind of stuff. And I just love that.

Alex Wieckowski (00:02:25)

Yeah, I could definitely relate and there's actually studies that talk about how if you read a physical book, you actually remember more of what you read because you kind of remember oh, that chapter was on the left side of this page, halfway through the book vs. on the Kindle book, everything was the same. So it's hard to remember, oh, where was that quote? Where's that lesson? But with the physical book, you kind of know where it is. So it's easier to find.

Dan Shipper (00:02:42)

That makes sense. How do you feel, because I love books, all my friends make fun of me because there's books everywhere all around my house, up to the walls, in the kitchen, all that kind of stuff. How do you feel about the future of books or people's relationships to reading? I'm sort of worried about whether or not books are going to be around in 100 years or whatever. How do you feel about it?

Alex Wieckowski (00:03:11)

I think either they will be around— I mean, it's kind of a simple answer, but you have the Lindy aspect of it where books have been around for thousands of years. And that means they'll probably be around for another 1,000 years. But then on the flip side, technology is moving so fast. Who knows with Neuralink, if you just download a book into your brain do you even need to read it? So, I think books will be useful until that point in time. So for now, for the next few decades, you want to be a reader because there's a lot of pros to it.

Dan Shipper (00:03:41)

I feel you. I love it. I think they'll be around for a while. I'm just always interested, especially for people who are creating content that's not necessarily book content. How do you think about books vs. other types of content, all that kind of stuff? So the topic for today is using AI to read. Can you give us a sort of broad overview of how you're using AI to read in your life?

Alex Wieckowski (00:04:06)

Yeah. So there's a lot of different ways to use it. I think we'll start with some of the simpler ways and then maybe get to the more advanced strategies later on. So one of the simplest ways to use AI is: Let's say there's a book you really enjoyed recently. So maybe name a book that you loved in the past month or so.

Dan Shipper (00:04:23)

I've been reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's series of sci-fi books. The one I'm currently reading is Children of Memory. But each book in the series is sort of like— The first book is about this race of intelligent spiders and they meet humans and what happens when that happens. And the next book is about intelligent octopuses, space-faring octopuses. And the third one is about crows. And what I really love about it is he's very good at thinking about, okay, how would an alien intelligence work? And then how would that layer up into the society they build in the technology they use? And specifically for aliens, I mean, how would it work for an actual human—not human—an actual animal intelligence that's on Earth if they evolved and became way more intelligent, way more advanced. So yeah, it's a great book.

Alex Wieckowski (00:05:26)

Okay, so this is a great way to use AI. So, if we were at a party and you mentioned that book, I don't read a lot of sci-fi books, so I don't really know what it's about. So, I'd literally just go to the bathroom, open up ChatGPT and be like, hey, can you summarize this book for me in 500 words? So I could go back to you and have a conversation about that book, or just be able to have a conversation with you. So I think that's one way you can use AI. So just use it as a way to summarize a book that someone mentions so that you have an understanding of what they're interested in.

Dan Shipper (00:05:49)

Can we see that? What would you use for that?

Alex Wieckowski (00:05:51)

So, I would just type in the name of that book that you mentioned and ask, you know for this specific case I would ask Claude AI or ChatGPT, “Can you summarize this book in 500 words?”

Dan Shipper (00:06:01)

Let's do it.

Alex Wieckowski (00:06:02)

Let's see what we get.

Dan Shipper (00:06:03)

Okay go for it.

Alex Wieckowski (00:06:05)

What was the book again?

Dan Shipper (00:06:07)

Children of Memory.

Alex Wieckowski (00:06:20)

Oh, so this is interesting. So Claude AI isn't able to summarize it. Let's see if we could use ChatGPT to get a summary. Oh, and look at that. So, ChatGPT is able to tell you more about the book than Claude AI.

Dan Shipper (00:06:39)

Yeah. I mean, I think ChatGPT has that browse feature. So especially for books that are maybe less popular, there's less stuff online. So it doesn't necessarily make it into the training data. ChatGPT is going to be a bit better at finding you the answer.

Alex Wieckowski (00:06:58)

Okay. So, for the prompt, I just asked, can you summarize Children of Memory in 500 words, and then ChatGPT gave a summary of the author and said it's the third book in this Children of Time series. “The novel continues the saga of humanity's struggle for survival and their interactions with the uplift of the species in a richly imaginative way.” As you mentioned earlier, it talks about humanity's struggle for survival and this kind of species that's a lot more advanced than we are. So, that's just a general summary and then it gives you a lot more information later down the line. And what I really like is you could kind of ask it to maybe summarize the book in two sentences or you could ask it to summarize the entire book in two pages. So you kind of have that spectrum of options.

Dan Shipper (00:07:37)

That's really cool. Yeah. What's next? After you do the summary, what do you typically do?

Alex Wieckowski (00:07:41)

In this case you really enjoyed this book, so let's try to find out what books might be similar to it. So, in this case, I may ask ChatGPT— Let's see, what was the question I mentioned? Okay, so let's use this prompt. “I love Children of Memory. Could you recommend a few books similar to it?” Okay, so let's see what we get here.

Dan Shipper (00:08:24)

I definitely— So, it looks like, so we've got Blindsight, The Three-Body Problem, Diaspora, Perdido, Aurora, The Broken Earth, Embassytown. That's really interesting. So I've read The Three-Body Problem. I've never heard of Blindsight. Let's see. “This novel explores first contact with an alien species and delves into themes of consciousness, identity, and the nature of intelligence.” That's actually cool, quite interesting. I definitely would probably read that. Let's keep going. So, Diaspora by Greg Egan. So Greg Egan I happen to know. I've read one of his other books whose name I'm blanking on, but I really like him as a writer. He's really good at conceptual sci-fi. This is definitely on point. And one of the things that I think is quite interesting about this is sometimes when you ask for book recommendations from ChatGPT, off the bat it can recommend pretty sort of cliché or books that are too popular. And so I often have to ask it to do off-the-beaten-path-type stuff. But these recommendations are really good.

Alex Wieckowski (00:09:30)

Yeah, when you were talking about the book earlier, The Three-Body Problem came to mind, but that's the limit of my science fiction reading. So it's interesting to see that you agree with a few of the books on the recommendation list. And yeah, I like to think of AI kind of as the ultimate librarian. So back in the day, if you really enjoyed the book, you might ask the librarian to give you book recommendations because they probably are the most well read person you know. But now you have AI that's been able to read through thousands, if not millions of books. So it's a great way to find your next book.

Dan Shipper (00:09:59)

Totally. One of the things that also is kind of interesting for this. I don't know if you push it in this direction, but before you ask it for recommendations, if you type in something like, tell me the vibes of Children of Memory. What is it about? What are the themes? What are the ideas? I'm trying to figure out why I like it. And, yeah, if you do that, ChatGPT will often say something that just really puts its finger on what you like about a book or a topic or kind of writing. And once you have that it's sort of this cheat code where you can be like, okay, I want more of that specific kind of thing. It's really kind of a magic moment. So let's see what it said. So, “Exploration of post-human civilizations: The novel delves into the lives of post-human species and their interactions with remnants of humanity.” That's interesting. “Memory and identity” is another one. “Central to the story is the theme of memory and its impact on identity. Survival and adaptation: blurring of technology and magic, interpersonal and interspecies relationships.” I think this is pretty good. “Philosophical and ethical questions, cosmic horror and hope.” That's interesting.

Alex Wieckowski (00:11:15)

I haven't heard that theme before.

Dan Shipper (00:11:17)

Yeah, so it's a sort of powerful thing. I'm kind of curious, do you have a couple of books that you've read recently that you've liked? Maybe we could throw it in there and see if we can pull out your taste too.

Alex Wieckowski (00:11:38)

So, I'm reading Andrew Wilkinson's new book, Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire, but it's not out yet. So I don't think—

Dan Shipper (00:11:43)

Yeah, ChatGPT might not have enough about it.

Alex Wieckowski (00:11:45)

Yeah. Well, I'm rereading $100M Offers. So, maybe we could use that book.

Dan Shipper (00:11:47)

Let's do it.

Alex Wieckowski (00:11:48)

Okay. So let's ask what are the themes of—

Dan Shipper (00:11:59)

I would say vibes. Because vibes are a bit broader for some reason. ChatGPT likes vibes.

Alex Wieckowski (00:12:05)

I would never think to use that word, but because I'm talking to a robot, not a person. But I'm surprised it's able to understand what we mean by vibes.

Dan Shipper (00:12:26)

You want to read it out?

Alex Wieckowski (00:12:28)

Yeah, so “We are pragmatic and action-oriented,” which I would totally agree on. If you're reading nonfiction you're reading because you want to solve a problem that you're having. So you want it to be useful and action -oriented because you want to take action on it. “High-energy and motivation” also would agree because you don't want to read something dull. There's so many business books that, sure, the information might be great, but if it's portrayed in a boring tone, it's hard to read. “Value-centric.” I think that's also a great point. When I read a book, I try to think what's the instance per page or wisdom per page. And Alex Hormozi is one of those people where every few sentences he drops a knowledge bomb and it just makes you want to keep reading. “Data-driven, analytical.” I would say another great point here because you don't want just an anecdotal story where it's like, alright, here's why I did it, but here's data proving it or backing it up. So it's not just wild claims. He actually has the data to prove it. “Empowering and educational,” would also agree with that. “No-nonsense and direct.” Yeah, that's another great point. You don't want to read a book with a lot of fluff in it. You kind of want to get to the meat of the book or get to the insights pretty quickly. And I think he does a great job of that.

Dan Shipper (00:13:44)

One thing that I think is really interesting, too, is I actually also like Alex Hormozi’s business books and I feel like I have a very diverse range of interests where I'm like, okay, I'm into conceptual sci-fi. I really like poetry. And I also really like sales-y business books like Alex Hormozi or whatever. What does that even mean? What is my taste? And ChatGPT is actually quite good at finding the intersections. So if you say something like, “Both of these books are my favorite books. Can you help me explain what my taste in books is?”

Alex Wieckowski (00:14:24)

That's interesting. So why do we enjoy—what was it—cosmic horror and hope and also action-oriented nonfiction books?

Dan Shipper (00:14:38)

So, let's see. So, this might be more of my taste since you said you don't, you don't read a lot of sci-fi, but it says “complex and thought-provoking content.” So, I always love when ChatGPT compliments me. I love complex thought provoking content. “You appreciate books that challenge your thinking, whether it's through deep philosophical questions and ethical dilemmas or practical business strategies.” I like that. “Practical and actionable.” We got that. That's really good. “Exploration of human and posthuman themes.” “High energy and motivational tone.” That is kind of interesting. I think there's probably some sort of energy overlap between Adrian Tchaikovsky and Alex Hormozi, which I think is a sentence that no one has ever said in the history of the world. But that is true. “Blending fiction with real-world relevance.” Okay. I think these are actually pretty good. I've definitely done this before with a huge list of all the books I like and it's been actually sort of life-changing to be like, okay, now I know what my taste is.

Alex Wieckowski (00:15:26)

Yeah, that's interesting. So I imagine the more data you input— Okay, here are the 20 best books I ever read. Recommend me the next 20 books I could read. That's really, that's really a useful way to use it.

Dan Shipper (00:15:36)

It's pretty cool. Okay, cool. So we've, so we've talked about sort of finding, finding the next book to read based on books that I liked. What's next?

Alex Wieckowski (00:15:49)

So let's use AI to help us maybe solve a recent problem we're having or something we want to improve on. So, what would come to mind? What's the area in your life you want to improve on or maybe a problem that you want to—

Dan Shipper (00:16:04)

This is an interesting one. Let me see if I can find a good problem for us. So basically one of the things— So I run Every, it's a media company. Got it right here. And we're growing a lot recently. We've got a newsletter. I've got this podcast. We have a paid subscription, so people get access to paid articles that we write and we have a really good crew of writers who are writing every day. We publish every day. We also recently added an entrepreneur-in-residence, so he's helping us start— We have a consulting arm. And then we also have a couple of software incubations, one of which we're launching a software product tomorrow, basically. We have a couple more in the pipeline, and so there's all these different things going on which I think is generally— Well, I think it's one of the good things about me as a company leader is I have a lot of energy and I have a lot of ideas and whatever, but it can also feel a little bit all over the place. And so I think I've been thinking a lot about, okay, how do we frame things so that all the whole company is rowing in the same direction, even if we have different writers over here and we have engineers building software over here and we have consultants and whatever. How do we make everyone row in the same direction and how do we get it all to layer up into one cohesive concept of what the company is? And I've started to think that I actually got this from a creator retreat that I went on. Because I think this is actually sort of similar for a lot of different creators but I've started to think of it a little bit like a pyramid where—and it's not a pyramid, I promise—but at the bottom of the pyramid it's sort of all the free content that we have that gets people in the door.

And then the layer above that is sort of our main offer, which is our $20 a month Every subscription. You get access to all of our articles, you get the software you build, you get discounts on courses, all that kind of stuff. And then above that we do consulting and training and then above that we do I'll do advising or speaking or whatever. And each layer up, it will appeal to fewer and fewer people who pay more and more. And that's sort of this whole pyramid. but then, I think the big question with the pyramid is, how do I keep everybody aligned together and know what everybody else is doing without creating a lot of meetings? And so it's a very long-winded way of saying we have maybe a bit of a bigger organization now than we have had in the past. And all the people in the organization are doing different things and I want to figure out a way to keep everybody aligned toward a similar common goal.

Alex Wieckowski (00:18:45)

Okay, so, let's try this prompt. Let's go to ChatGPT again. Okay. So the general prompt that I've been using is, “I'm currently struggling with [describe pain point here].”

Dan Shipper (00:18:56)

And I just gave you an entire monologue of pains.

Alex Wieckowski (00:19:00)

I'm going to try to summarize it in a sentence. Hopefully I can try it. “So the problem is I'm currently struggling with [describe pain point here]. Could you recommend me three books that will help me solve this problem?” Okay, so let me try to do my best to summarize.

Dan Shipper (00:19:12)

We'll see how good your listening skills are.

Alex Wieckowski (00:19:14)

“I'm currently struggling with building a media empire and I'm worried about company culture and making sure we are all moving in the same direction.” Is there anything you would add to that?

Dan Shipper (00:19:52)

I think we have different parts of the business and making sure everyone knows what's going on in other parts of the business and everyone supports each other rather than sort of competing is kind of the way I would frame it. Not even necessarily competing, just being aligned.