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The author is the head of Microsoft AI. Gates might not be entirely unbiased here :) edit: as a semi-related question for folks here. How often do you 'vet' au

The author is the head of Microsoft AI. Gates might not be entirely unbiased here :) edit: as a semi-related question for folks here. How often do you 'vet' authors of non-fiction books prior to reading the book?

NilMostChill 2y ago
depends on the subject matter. If it's something i have no grounding in then understanding the authors' potential biases is useful. If it's something I'm relatively familiar with or close enough that i think I'll be able to understand the application of potential biases in realtime then i don't usually bother. This issue is sometimes somewhat alleviated by reading multiple sources for the same/similar information. YMMV
ladyprestor 2y ago
I always do a little bit of research on the author online beforehand. If I'm going to read a non-fiction book I need to know if the author is credible. I do believe Bill Gates might be a little bit biased here. I read the book some months ago, and while I can't say it's a bad book, I wouldn't call it a favorite either.
zeofig 2y ago
>The author is the head of Microsoft AI. I'm disappointed but not surprised.
ccppurcell 2y ago
Funny you should say that because I just read his Wikipedia page and a couple of articles about him. He and Gates are successful salesmen and managers who dabbled in coding when they were young. I don't expect any insight from them about the effect of technologies on society or anything like that. The idea that they are intellectuals or scholars is laughable.
- signatoremo 2y ago
  Really, you judge their intellectuality from reading Wikipedia and a few articles? What if I tell you that you are shallow at best and incapable of critical thinking, from the comments you made on HN? Does that sound ridiculous on my end?
pjmorris 2y ago
> How often do you 'vet' authors of non-fiction books prior to reading the book? I misread the question as 'How' rather than 'How often', but I'll repeat Jerry Weinberg's heuristic. He'd wait until three people he trusted recommended a book before reading it, as a way to filter for quality. He used it as a way to manage his limited time ("24 hours, maybe 60 good years" - Jimmy Buffett), but it also works to weed out books not worth mentioning. In terms of 'how often', pretty often.
senko 2y ago
I read all the negative/neutral GoodReads comments of the book (and author's other books if I'm not familiar with the author, and maybe Wikipedia if I want to dig deeper). 99% of books I learn about from recommendations (HN, blogs, other books), and the pattern I see is that the source/recommender are usually at the similar "popsci" level. I sometimes get it wrong. In most cases I just waste a few hours. The worst mistake was taking Why We Sleep to heart before I read the rebuttal. I still think it's fine, but more on a Gladwell level. Im Suleyman's case, I recognize the name from Inflection shenanigans, so already have a bias against the book to start with.
pkd 2y ago
I basically don't read much pop sci anymore because they are almost always bad, and the science from the good ones is better read unfiltered through papers and the journals do a good job of making authors declare conflicts of interest. It is the worst when these books are not written by people with scientific training because they are more likely to make logical errors or use motivated reasoning to push a narrative.

NilMostChill 2y ago

depends on the subject matter. If it's something i have no grounding in then understanding the authors' potential biases is useful. If it's something I'm relatively familiar with or close enough that i think I'll be able to understand the application of potential biases in realtime then i don't usually bother. This issue is sometimes somewhat alleviated by reading multiple sources for the same/similar information. YMMV

ladyprestor 2y ago

I always do a little bit of research on the author online beforehand. If I'm going to read a non-fiction book I need to know if the author is credible. I do believe Bill Gates might be a little bit biased here. I read the book some months ago, and while I can't say it's a bad book, I wouldn't call it a favorite either.

zeofig 2y ago

>The author is the head of Microsoft AI. I'm disappointed but not surprised.

ccppurcell 2y ago

Funny you should say that because I just read his Wikipedia page and a couple of articles about him. He and Gates are successful salesmen and managers who dabbled in coding when they were young. I don't expect any insight from them about the effect of technologies on society or anything like that. The idea that they are intellectuals or scholars is laughable.

signatoremo 2y ago
Really, you judge their intellectuality from reading Wikipedia and a few articles? What if I tell you that you are shallow at best and incapable of critical thinking, from the comments you made on HN? Does that sound ridiculous on my end?

pjmorris 2y ago

> How often do you 'vet' authors of non-fiction books prior to reading the book? I misread the question as 'How' rather than 'How often', but I'll repeat Jerry Weinberg's heuristic. He'd wait until three people he trusted recommended a book before reading it, as a way to filter for quality. He used it as a way to manage his limited time ("24 hours, maybe 60 good years" - Jimmy Buffett), but it also works to weed out books not worth mentioning. In terms of 'how often', pretty often.

senko 2y ago

I read all the negative/neutral GoodReads comments of the book (and author's other books if I'm not familiar with the author, and maybe Wikipedia if I want to dig deeper). 99% of books I learn about from recommendations (HN, blogs, other books), and the pattern I see is that the source/recommender are usually at the similar "popsci" level. I sometimes get it wrong. In most cases I just waste a few hours. The worst mistake was taking Why We Sleep to heart before I read the rebuttal. I still think it's fine, but more on a Gladwell level. Im Suleyman's case, I recognize the name from Inflection shenanigans, so already have a bias against the book to start with.

pkd 2y ago

I basically don't read much pop sci anymore because they are almost always bad, and the science from the good ones is better read unfiltered through papers and the journals do a good job of making authors declare conflicts of interest. It is the worst when these books are not written by people with scientific training because they are more likely to make logical errors or use motivated reasoning to push a narrative.