2025-12-16 Tue

• Kindle app now answers questions about the book you’re reading | The Verge
  • I use AI heavily as a thought partner when reading today, I just have to do it outside of Kindle. I use Readwise Reader's "ghostwriter" feature, which similarly allows asking AI questions, at least once a day. I also regularly use ChatGPT with audio mode to do something similar when walking.
  • Most of my queries are requests to expand the details to fill in my knowledge or imagination,
  • For example, this morning, while reading an article, I asked, "where are places where Energy Return on Investment is typically used as a metric?" or "what are some examples of what the author means by 'heterodox economists' in this passage?"
  • Some of my queries are attempts to explore connections between different ideas. This morning on the way in to work, I asked ChatGPT on the article Ideas Aren’t Getting Harder to Find—Asterisk, "the author is attempting to explain why GDP growth has stagnated in recent decades as though that were something that was unexpected. My intuition makes me wonder, though, if GDP growth was just no longer a fair metric to use due to structural changes in the economy. Regulatory capture and the pressure to create financial instruments to smuggle capital into private, untaxable enclaves have turned the economy into an officially endorsed Ponzi scheme (or maybe my terminology is inaccurate ... there are many types of "rigged games" and Ponzi scheme may not be the exact type of rigged game that is most comparable to our economy ... what are some others)? In particular, GDP doesn't capture tacit efficiencies that people make in their industry. For example, if someone uses AI to automate most of their job, but they don't switch jobs, get a raise, or create new products, their job may just change in kind to expand to more surface area of their responsibilities without that showing up in revenue or profit or other metrics until much later. Can you help me unpack this?"
• Read/ing Person/Cory Doctorow/Book/23/Red Team Blues - about 10% in. It's about Security and Crypto. Just love using Doctorow to review the crypto landscape in a fun story without having to peruse tech bro reddit. Pure Edu/tainment