How to Be a Smarter Reader in the Age of AI - Ep. 30 with Alex Wieckowski

Alex Wieckowski is on a mission to make you fall in love with reading again—and he thinks AI can help.

Alex, who writes a newsletter that captures lessons from books he’s read and tips to become a better reader, Alex & Books, is a creator with over 1 million followers across social platforms. He’s also the author of a book of quotes that will inspire you to read more, Learn to Love Reading.

We spent an hour talking about how Alex uses AI to be a smarter reader, and we tested out a few strategies live on the show, including:

• prompting ChatGPT to recommend books that will help me lead a creator-run business better,
• understanding the deeper themes in Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddhartha with large language models, and
• using AI to create an actionable strategy for Alex to build a course based on the frameworks in Alex Hormozi’s business strategy book $100M Offers.

Alex clued me into what he’s learned about developing a good reading habit, and his best advice on how to reignite your passion for books. We also discuss Alex’s predictions on how companies like Neuralink, which make use of a brain-computer interface—a technology that allows users to control external devices through brain activity—will change the future of reading and books. Here’s a link to the transcript of this episode.

This is a must-watch for book lovers, people struggling to finish books, and anyone who wants to take their reading to the next level with AI.

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Timestamps:

1. Introduction: 00:00:34

2. Choose physical books over e-readers to boost your memory: 00:01:36

3. Alex’s take on how long books will stay relevant: 00:02:54

4. Prompt ChatGPT to find your next read: 00:07:40

5. Articulating Dan’s taste in books with AI: 00:13:50

6. Use AI to find books tailored to solve your problems: 00:15:46

7. How to use AI as a personal study buddy: 00:33:32

8. Prompt LLMs to turn insights from books into actionable strategies: 00:41:19

9. What Alex’s rule around buying a new book is: 01:02:10

10. Alex’s advice for anyone who feels like they don’t have time to read: 01:16:36

Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

• Alex Wieckowski: https://twitter.com/AlexAndBooks_

• Alex’s newsletter: https://alexandbooks.beehiiv.com/

• The self-improvement book that got Alex into reading: How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie

• The books that Dan is reading: Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism by Richard Rorty

• The books that Alex is reading: Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire by Andrew Wilkinson, $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi, Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, Outlive by Peter Attia