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How to read more books

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Re: How to read more books

#301

Post by WolfeReader »

Eueudhsbsj32 wrote: post #299
WolfeReader wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, you are drinking the corporate kool-aid eagerly . The brain understands concepts. I can say, for example, "a penny saved is a penny earned" and understand that I'm talking about money and savings in general. I've felt the satisfaction of a full bank account and the panic of a near-empty one. The AI knows that someone once wrote the words "a penny saved is a penny earned" in that order. It has ingested volumes of…

You're just describing different ways of learning concepts. Learning from lived experience and learning from reading the experience of the others are both valid. AI is doing a lot more than just regurgitating facts. It can take abstract concepts and apply them reasonably well in novel scenarios. To make things more concrete, how about you name a specific concept that you believe a frontier model can't grasp?

Easy: counting letters in a word. There are tons of examples where AI confidently presents incorrect letter counts as fact. Search it up, really! Good example article: https://wonderfulengineering.com/googles-new-ai-search-think...

If AI was learning and understanding, this would have been solved in 2024. As it is, it's just predicting words that are likely to answer the question.

You're slurping up the excrement of corporations if you think AI is "learning" from reading others' experiences. All it is learning - all it can learn - is what words are likely to appear one after another, with no semantic understanding.

Re: How to read more books

#302

Post by chistev »

vermooten wrote: post #71

I've read 31 novels since January, far more than I'd read in the last 30 years. Easy: I read 50 pages every night when I go to bed, instead of screens. I started with short novels, 150 pages or fewer (chatgpt gave me a reading list). It quickly became a habit, and it's lovely.

Yea, I do 50 pages too when I read. But I don't read every day, even though that was my goal at the start of the year.

I have lots of things to do, and sometimes reading takes hours of my day that I need to give to other productive activities.

But I dedicate specific days go reading.

I've read 16 books thus far this year.

Re: How to read more books

#303

Post by chistev »

pflenker wrote: post #201

I find it very hard to find books worth reading. It’s so difficult to separate Signal from noise - there are just too many books and too few reliable curators. Amazon ratings, goodreads, some book awards, best seller lists - they all are sometimes hit, mostly miss for me.

I used to be in that boat of not knowing what to read. Even using r/books didn't always give me good books.

Until, I realized Hacker News users sometimes recommend books in their comments, and the books are related to the topic being discussed. Also, sometimes there are submissions asking people to list their favorite books ever, favorite books read in a particular year, etc. It was a game changer.

Re: How to read more books

#304

Post by Eueudhsbsj32 »

WolfeReader wrote: post #301
Eueudhsbsj32 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just describing different ways of learning concepts. Learning from lived experience and learning from reading the experience of the others are both valid. AI is doing a lot more than just regurgitating facts. It can take abstract concepts and apply them reasonably well in novel scenarios. To make things more concrete, how about you name a specific concept that you believe a frontier model can't grasp?

Easy: counting letters in a word. There are tons of examples where AI confidently presents incorrect letter counts as fact. Search it up, really! Good example article: https://wonderfulengineering.com/googles-new-ai-search-think... If AI was learning and understanding, this would have been solved in 2024. As it is, it's just predicting words that are likely to answer the question. You're slurping up the excrement of…

First of all, that's already a solved problem for current frontier models. Give me a specific example if you don't believe me.

Second of all, not being able to properly spell a word doesn't mean one doesn't have a semantic understanding of the concepts the word represent. Do you think an illiterate person is incapable of intelligence?

Re: How to read more books

#306

Post by WolfeReader »

Eueudhsbsj32 wrote: post #304
WolfeReader wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy: counting letters in a word. There are tons of examples where AI confidently presents incorrect letter counts as fact. Search it up, really! Good example article: https://wonderfulengineering.com/googles-new-ai-search-think... If AI was learning and understanding, this would have been solved in 2024. As it is, it's just predicting words that are likely to answer the question. You're slurping up the excrement of…

First of all, that's already a solved problem for current frontier models. Give me a specific example if you don't believe me. Second of all, not being able to properly spell a word doesn't mean one doesn't have a semantic understanding of the concepts the word represent. Do you think an illiterate person is incapable of intelligence?

I already gave a specific example. And since your second paragraph shows that you don't understand what generative AI even is or how it works, you have got some learning due before you continue to discuss AI.

Re: How to read more books

#307

Post by iamtheworstdev »

picklesman wrote: post #255
iamtheworstdev wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so you have to buy the book and the audiobook?

I use Libby and I have a few library cards and an audible subscription. There are also other less ethical ways that I use, though to compensate I buy the books I really like in physical form.

appreciate the response and not passing judgment, i'm intrigued by this idea because I recently found myself "watching" a podcast by listening at 1.5x speed while also reading the transcripts. but I can't bring myself to pay $20 for a book and $20 for the audiobook to do the same. maybe it's time for a library card.

Re: How to read more books

#308

Post by ctchocula »

cubefox wrote: post #119
AyanamiKaine wrote: post #37

While I do agree that reading is really important especially when it comes to good books. BUT simply consuming something for the sake of consumption is rarely a good idea. I know of people that read books and consome them like food everyday, and wont learn anything thing from them. Their content becoming a distant memory as time passes. What is the point of reading something if you forget it 2 weeks later? You may re…

Schopenhauer made a similar point in his essay "On Reading and Books". https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Books_and_Reading https://fs.blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Arthur-Schopenhau...

A fascinating read. Thank you for sharing!

Re: How to read more books

#309

Post by Apocryphon »

basscomm wrote: post #293
latexr wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing wrong with either of those things, but they're not reading. Why are you compelled to defend that (in my view) meaningless distinction? Why does it matter? I’m asking genuinely, so I can understand why we’re having this conversation.

Defend what? That reading and listening are two different skills?

I am somewhat biased against audiobooks as well, but how do you justify that consuming text, language, words is substantially different between reading and listening? Particularly in novels and the like? If you aren't re-reading passages, and only processing lines of text in a linear fashion, how is that any different from listening to a transcription?

Re: How to read more books

#310

Post by picklesman »

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #307
picklesman wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Libby and I have a few library cards and an audible subscription. There are also other less ethical ways that I use, though to compensate I buy the books I really like in physical form.

appreciate the response and not passing judgment, i'm intrigued by this idea because I recently found myself "watching" a podcast by listening at 1.5x speed while also reading the transcripts. but I can't bring myself to pay $20 for a book and $20 for the audiobook to do the same. maybe it's time for a library card.

indeed it would be prohibitively expensive
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