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by rcarmo·1mo ago·view on hn ↗
I have a checklist to go _back_ to reading 30-odd books a year, and right now the top 5 items are:

1. Stop messing about with AI

2. Stop doomscrolling/interacting on social networks (HN is within my 15m allocation)

3. Stop watching _any_ Youtube video that doesn't teach me anything

4. Gloss over my 200 RSS feeds, don't be a completionist

5. Put on classical music, not indie or radio

It almost works. Almost.

1 comments
> Stop messing about with AI

I see a few comments about wasting time with AI. I'm curious what the gist of those conversations is about?

I've found AI to be incredibly useful as a tool to nurture intellectual curiosity.

It even improves my book reading experience. Before, when I didn't fully understand a technical detail the author had glossed over, I usually had to skip it, hoping it wasn't critical for understanding later topics. Now, I can get precise explanations for anything I didn't understand in whatever level or detail I require.

as a consumate obsidian note taker i've found that as asking questions to a quick model and have it challenge me with leading questions has helped me refine my writing to be more useful and driven. when my note is done, i'll pass it through to see if any jargon is a crutch with my prompts are about forcing me to explain it "as simple as possible and no more".

in other situations feed it notes, bookmarked articles, generate syllabuses for something you want to learn more about, and generate create html/css "interactive textbooks". the ability to have an infinitely deep tutor always around feels revolutionary.

well, I created https://github.com/rcarmo/piclaw, and as a result of that I have several permanently running agents and entirely too many projects going at once. That's _my_ "messing with AI"...