Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop • Hacker News Board

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#21

Post by theshackleford » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 10:53 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #12

I would bet that how your brain stores information that you read from long-form text is very different from how it stores information you acquire from chatting with an LLM. When I read something challenging or new to me I spend a lot of time thinking about how what I'm reading matches my own experiences or knowledge. Although I'm a fairly fast reader, it often takes me a long time to get through difficult pages since…

> When interacting with LLMs it feels a lot more like I'm just receiving knowledge passively and I don't think it gets integrated as well.

This sounds like it's more down to how the individual uses the tool. I am not someone who has even been particularly good at reading > learning the thing. I've only ever been capable of learning by doing and with capability to interrogate on the points I don't get. LLMs allow that in a way that is just not feasible with any human being whose tolerance of me would diminish rapidly.

In most cases, I will be writing down my understanding as I would in isolation from a primary source, building flash cards and actively practicing what I have learned, only with more capability to interrogate on the points I have difficulty understanding or need clarity on. Effectively, I am doing the following in a capacity I personally never had via any other means:

> I seem to be doing a lot of integrating and reorganizing my thoughts.

If you are using it as a slot machine of knowledge, and going from receiving > doing with no intermediate step I see how outcomes could differ.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#22

Post by conception » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 10:53 PM UTC

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #14

On a related note, I was just noting to my co-founder, as we struggle to write good case studies for our website, that I find LLMs are astoundingly bad at writing good prose. We all know the "AI-tics" that give away a sloppily AI-written piece, but even if you steer them, they still struggle to write consistently high-quality prose. Somehow I feel that the work of a good copywriter has never been more noticeable.

I recently realized this as well and I think what I’ve discovered is that AI just produces mediocre content in all realms, but you don’t really notice it except in the realms where you have real expertise. With a lot of harness and prompting you can have it pump out something that’s pretty good but by default the next best token rarely produces anything of quality it seems like and if you think it does, perhaps you may want to recheck your assumptions on your expertise of the topic at hand

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#23

Post by Mtinie » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 10:56 PM UTC

cyanydeez wrote: post #16

mpalmer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not really enjoyed finding out lately just how few people seem to notice what ought to be unmissable.

those people will also start adopting the AIsm and will become indistinguishable.

AI adopted humanisms, we just weren’t used to seeing them at the same scale we do today.

Diversity of writing styles was part of that, but I’d point to vernacular exposure as the larger component. We’re going to go through a period where we try to adapt to a form of “Universal English” for those of us who read primarily English writing.

Other languages’ readers may be experiencing the same dissonance when they come across AI-generated prose in their native language (but I’ll let others validate /reject my hypothesis).

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#24

Post by tony_cannistra » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 10:56 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #20

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #12

I would bet that how your brain stores information that you read from long-form text is very different from how it stores information you acquire from chatting with an LLM. When I read something challenging or new to me I spend a lot of time thinking about how what I'm reading matches my own experiences or knowledge. Although I'm a fairly fast reader, it often takes me a long time to get through difficult pages since…

I listen to audiobooks while I walk and hike, and sometimes when I recall some particular thing I've learned, I can also recall where I was hiking when I heard it. I think there's a lot to learn on how we really process information.

Same here. I always marvel at this. These recollections can even be years later, and the memory of the place in which I heard the remembered thing is vivid.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#25

Post by vmg12 » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 10:58 PM UTC

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #14

On a related note, I was just noting to my co-founder, as we struggle to write good case studies for our website, that I find LLMs are astoundingly bad at writing good prose. We all know the "AI-tics" that give away a sloppily AI-written piece, but even if you steer them, they still struggle to write consistently high-quality prose. Somehow I feel that the work of a good copywriter has never been more noticeable.

I can sniff out AI writing immediately but from what I hear AI writing is more popular than ever

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#26

Post by raincole » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 11:07 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #12

I would bet that how your brain stores information that you read from long-form text is very different from how it stores information you acquire from chatting with an LLM. When I read something challenging or new to me I spend a lot of time thinking about how what I'm reading matches my own experiences or knowledge. Although I'm a fairly fast reader, it often takes me a long time to get through difficult pages since…

> When interacting with LLMs it feels a lot more like I'm just receiving knowledge passively

It's... almost an oxymoron, and very different from my experience.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#27

Post by OgsyedIE » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 11:08 PM UTC

Suggested additions: the Axiom Business Book Awards, Library Journal Best Books of the Year and Booklist Magazine's Editor's Choice Awards. There's also a few popular substacks that have big sideshows in regular book reviews, but I wouldn't even recommend my favourite for a public aggregator like this.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#28

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 11:12 PM UTC

vmg12 wrote: post #25

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #14

On a related note, I was just noting to my co-founder, as we struggle to write good case studies for our website, that I find LLMs are astoundingly bad at writing good prose. We all know the "AI-tics" that give away a sloppily AI-written piece, but even if you steer them, they still struggle to write consistently high-quality prose. Somehow I feel that the work of a good copywriter has never been more noticeable.

I can sniff out AI writing immediately but from what I hear AI writing is more popular than ever

[deleted]

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#29

Post by maxdo » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 11:14 PM UTC

I participate book club for several years with friends, we casually navigate certain topics, and i can tell you human slop in literature is a real thing.

- almost every book try to stretch core idea into book size format

- unique ideas are rare people attack them under different angels

- a later phenomena : their believes almost predict entire book, outcomes etc, brainwash impact is real

so not sure, how ai slop is better vs book slop, at least with ai you can distill the idea, with the book, you have to spend 10-40 hours to digest average, absolutely non fresh ideas, that author brought in just to sell that book, otherwise it would be magazine article worth.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#30

Post by tolugenius » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 11:20 PM UTC

maxdo wrote: post #29

I participate book club for several years with friends, we casually navigate certain topics, and i can tell you human slop in literature is a real thing. - almost every book try to stretch core idea into book size format - unique ideas are rare people attack them under different angels - a later phenomena : their believes almost predict entire book, outcomes etc, brainwash impact is real so not sure, how ai slop is b…

In your experience, how do you determine book slop? For me I don't really stray from authors and topics I like, and non-fiction isn't really my go to outside of sci-fi, and mystery/law books. Like on the stretch point, I can tell that in other media but not so much books.