Do you know the feeling when you’re struggling through a difficult book? Sometimes you’ll catch yourself just reading the words, not really understanding what they mean…

It happens to me all the time.

And I know why it always does.

I read something that I think I sort of understand, but in reality I really don’t.

What do I do?

I read on anyways..

And what always happens?

The author further builds upon that very thing I don’t understand.

And so I get bored and frustrated, just zoning out, hoping that this topic will be over soon. I don’t want to spend the energy to understand, don’t want to reread pages and pages…

With AI, this problem has completely faded for me. When I now don’t understand something, I will just ask ChatGPT. If its answer is still not clear, I can just ask to explain it better, or ask specific follow-up questions. It feels like talking to a professor, except the professor has an infinite patience and I don’t feel ashamed when I have asked the same question 10 times and still don’t understand … 😅

To really put this experience on steroids, I use GPT4 which has the ability to read text from photos. I can just snap a quick picture and ask things like: “What did the author mean by …”. This greatly encourages me to ask questions, as the needed context is provided by the photo and I don’t need to type it all out.

I noticed this change in my behaviour while reading broken money by Lyn Alden, a book I enjoyed way more thanks to AI.