AI and the Liquidity of Information

For a long time I have envisioned a future where I was able to consume information in multiple forms, depending on my level of interest, what I am doing at a certain moment in time, how much mental energy I have, etcetera. With the recent breakthroughs in language based AI models, I believe the age has come where people can choose and change their medium of information consumption. In this article I propose that information is now liquid and I will try to present different modes of consumption and how to easily switch between them.

Philosophy is one of my passions and I spend a lot of time consuming philosophical content through different media such as books, articles and YouTube videos. However, as I am a visual thinker, I have a hard time consuming large bodies of texts, especially reading original works. Hence, for this article I will take a 12 page document by Bertrand Russel from 1935 named In Praise Of Idleness to demonstrate my purposes. I will “liquify” the article in the following ways:

1. Original text
2. Levels of summarization
3. Visualizations
4. Audio options
5. Video options

1. Original text

Even with the unmodified, original text there are a plethora of options to consume it:

• Internet article
• As an epub for your ereader
• As a pdf for annotations
• And even more formats according to your needs

I have read the full article, and even though it is not that tough, at times my mind was wondering off. Also, I tried to make a summary myself which was a little unsatisfactory. Let’s see how we can address both issues.

2. Levels of summarization

It still blows my mind how trivial it is for AI to summarize texts in whatever format one desires. Let’s try a couple of different methods:

• 2.1 “Abstract”
• 2.2 One sentence paragraph summarization
• 2.3 5-year-old summarization
• 2.4 Reverse summarization, or “elaboration”
• 2.5 Hierarchical nested bullet points

2.1 “Abstract”

This is by far the easiest method to perform. You can use any “talk to your pdf” type service online, or easier still, use Microsoft Edge’s built in AI and ask it to summarize a page:

This gives a great top level view of the key concepts of the text. Sometimes this is more than enough and you can save a lot of time reading excessive details, but if you need more details there are other methods of summarization.

2.2 One sentence paragraph summarization

As I have found no service which can do this, I am going to build this myself. I will spare you all the technical details, but in short, this is what I did: cleaned up the text file so it only contained the paragraphs > loaded it into a Google Colab python environment > sent each paragraph to OpenAI to summarize it in 1 sentence > voila. This is what we get:

• The author challenges the belief that work is virtuous and advocates for idleness, citing the harm caused by overworking and the need for a public campaign to promote it.
• The argument that engaging in everyday jobs takes bread out of other people’s mouths is invalid as spending income gives employment, and saving is the real villain.
• Lending money to a government increases its armed forces, making the lender complicit in war preparation, and it would be better to spend the money on personal consumption.
• Investing in failed industrial enterprises diverts labor into unproductive channels and harms others, while spending money philanthropically brings pleasure to many and is viewed more favorably.
• Belief in the virtuousness of work is causing harm in the modern world and the path to happiness and prosperity lies in reducing work.
• Work can be divided into two types: physically altering matter and telling others to do so, with the latter being more pleasant and highly paid, requiring skills in persuasive speaking and writing.
• In Europe, there is a class of landowners who are idle and make others pay for the privilege of existing and working, and their desire for comfortable idleness is the source of the whole gospel of work.
• Before the Industrial Revolution, workers produced only enough to survive, with any surplus taken by warriors and priests, leading to famine and death. This system persisted in some parts of the world until recently, shaping attitudes towards work. However, modern technology has made leisure accessible to all, rendering the morality of work obsolete.
• In primitive communities, peasants were compelled to produce and part with surplus, but gradually an ethic was induced to work hard for the interests of their masters. Leisure is essential to civilization, and modern technique can distribute it justly.
• The war showed that scientific organization of production can provide fair comfort to modern populations on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world, but the old chaos was restored after the war.
• The morality of the Slave State has been applied in a disastrous way, as illustrated by the example of pin manufacturing, where the common approach of engaging in mechanical activity to divert attention from pain causes misery instead of being a universal source of happiness.
• The rich have historically opposed the idea of the poor having leisure time, and in the past, long working hours were justified as a means of keeping adults from drinking and children from mischief, while public holidays were seen as unnecessary. This sentiment still exists and contributes to economic confusion.
• The ethics of work should be considered without superstition, and it is unjust for a person to consume more than they produce, but providing services in return for board and lodging is acceptable.
• In modern societies, those who inherit or marry money can escape work, but the expectation for wage-earners to overwork or starve is harmful.
• Working four hours a day with sensible organization could eliminate unemployment and provide for everyone, but the idea is rejected by the wealthy who believe the poor would not know how to use leisure time.
• In America, men work long hours and dislike leisure for wage-earners, but do not mind their wives and daughters having no work at all, which is in agreement with common sense.
• Leisure is important for a fulfilling life, and excessive work is no longer necessary for the majority of people.
• The Russian government’s attitude towards the dignity of labor is similar to that of the governing classes of the world, emphasizing industry, sobriety, willingness to work long hours, and submissiveness to authority, all under the new name of Dialectical Materialism.
• In Russia, manual work is highly valued and considered noble due to the influence of teachings that praise the virtues of honest toil and the simple life, resulting in the manual worker being more honored than anyone else.
• A country with abundant natural resources needs to be developed through hard work, but the question arises of what will happen when everyone can live comfortably without working long hours.
• The West employs various methods to deal with economic injustice and overproduction, including keeping a large percentage of the working population idle and resorting to war, resulting in the notion that manual work is the lot of the average man.
• In Russia, the problem of reducing work hours while maintaining productivity is difficult due to the emphasis on hard work as a virtue, leading to potential sacrifices of present leisure for future productivity.
• The idea that manual labor is the noblest task is a misconception, as it is only necessary for survival and not a fulfilling end goal; workers find happiness in their leisure time.
• The modern world’s belief that everything should be done for the sake of something else is a condemnation of our civilization, inhibiting light-heartedness and play, and making everything topsy-turvy.
• The social purpose of production is consumption, but the focus on profit-making makes it difficult to prioritize enjoyment and happiness for the consumer.
• The author proposes that reducing work hours to four would allow for basic necessities and leisure time, which should be used for education and developing intelligent leisure activities.
• Urban populations engage in passive pleasures due to lack of leisure time, but the desire for active participation still exists in human nature.
• The leisure class, despite being oppressive and limited in sympathies, contributed to civilization by cultivating arts, discovering sciences, inventing philosophies, and refining social relations, and without them, mankind would never have emerged from barbarism.
• The hereditary leisure class was wasteful and unproductive, and while universities have improved the situation, they still have drawbacks such as a lack of awareness of ordinary people’s problems and discouragement of original research.
• In a world where people work only four hours a day, individuals can pursue their interests and passions without the need for economic independence, leading to a more fulfilling and productive society.
• The author argues that modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all, but we have chosen overwork for some and starvation for others, resulting in a lack of good nature and an inclination towards war.

The advantage of this approach is that you can get a good grasp of the full text and whenever you find parts that especially interest you, just take the full text and read the whole paragraph. Ideally, I would like to see a service that let’s you switch to the full paragraph with a single button click.

2.3 5-year-old summarization

As the text is not too difficult, I will not try this method on the Bertrand Russell article, but let’s try it on a more difficult piece of text. Take this passage from Nietzsche’s On the genealogy of morals:

While the aristocratic man lives confidently and is open to himself (γεννῖoς,56 ‘noble-born’, emphasizes the nuance ‘sincere’, and perhaps also ‘naive’), the man of resentment, on the other hand, is not sincere or naive, neither honest nor candid with himself. His soul squints; his mind loves dark corners, secret passages and hidden doors, everything covert appeals to him as his world, his security, his comfort; he is a past master of silence, of not forgetting, of patience, of assuming a mode of self-deprecation and humility for a while. A race of such resentful men will eventually prove more cunning than any aristocratic race; they will respect cunning to a much greater degree, namely as something most vital to existence, whereas cunning among aristocratic men is apt to be redolent of luxury and refinement; so among them it does not play so integral a part as that complete certainty of function of the governing unconscious instincts, nor as that certain lack of caution, such as a valiant charge at the enemy, bravery in the face of danger, or as those ecstatic bursts of rage, love, reverence, gratitude, by which at all times noble souls have recognized each other. When the resentment of the aristocratic man manifests itself, it is consumed and exhausted in an immediate reaction, and consequently instils no venom; on the other hand, it never manifests itself at all in countless instances when it would be inevitable for the feeble and weak.

I asked OpenAI: Summarize this text in 1 sentence like I am a 5 year old:

A noble person is open and brave, while a resentful person is sneaky and holds onto grudges, and they behave very differently because of these qualities.

Much easier! Now imagine doing this for entire articles on difficult topics. You will not get all the nitty gritty details but at least you know what it’s about and get a better grasp of the concepts than only a short summary.

2.4 Reverse summarization, or “elaboration”

This one I have not built (yet) but the concept is as follows: as the Idleness article was written in 1935 and makes quite some claims, especially on how people will spend excessive leisure time, I’d like to know what predictions have come true or not, if anything has changed or what modern science has to say about it. Imagine having a co-reader with all the knowledge in the world.

2.5 Hierarchical nested bullet points

This is where we are going to convert the text “blob” into something relational, which makes it (in my opinion) much easier to remember. By doing some creative prompt engineering, I could make GPT-4 create this structure out of the text, bundling similar ideas together into main topics and subtopics:

(Medium makes it really hard to create nested bullets so here’s a screenshot)

Still too “blobby”? No worries, let’s make it look better by visualizing it.

Visualizations

1. Mindmap

Using the hierarchical bullet points above, I could use an online tool to convert this into a mindmap. Admittedly, this is not the most visually pleasing mindmap in existence, but it gives you a quick overview of the topics.

Ideally, this should be interactive, so you could isolate certain areas. When clicking on a branch end, you should be referred to the original paragraph so you can read this in detail.

Sunburst diagram

This is a very similar concept as a mindmap but with a more rigid layout. It doesn’t allow for a lot of text, but this can be mitigated by making it interactive. In the example below the sentences in the lower level can be viewed by hovering your mouse over it.

There are many ways to improve this, but I hope you get the main idea of the benefits of this type of diagram.

Audio

All levels of summarization can also be consumed as audio. As audio is easier to consume, one could choose to listen to the abstract before listening to the full text, so you know where it’s leading and what details to pay attention to. Here are some audio fragments you can use:

• Full audio: audioanarchy.org/antiwork/04-In_Praise_Of_Idleness.mp3
• Six minute summary we made earlier: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZZZUcktp_iezDyGloQTXDksx8BKrXdPR/view?usp=drive_link
• And most conveniently: just use a chrome extension which can read a full page or just a selection of the page. For example, you can use Read Aloud

The six minute summary was made using Eleven Labs, which currently has the best text-to-speech services and they offer a free tier as well.

Video

There are unlimited options to make a video out of text, but this is one way which should be possible to have fully automated.

For each paragraph, an AI can make a prompt for a AI image generator. Then, each individual sentence can be displayed while it is being read. Using the same paragraph from Nietzsche from earlier in this article, GPT-4 has created this image prompt:

Aristocratic man, man of resentment, sincerity, dark corners and hidden doors, cunning, unconscious instincts, bursts of emotions (rage, love, reverence, gratitude), and venomous resentment.

Not the best prompt in the world, but I’ll take it. Let’s see what images it will create.

Not sure how related it is to the text but it’s captivating and might help you keep paying attention. Now imagine the text displayed on top of this image and a new image for each new paragraph. Is this a good way to consume information? You be the judge.

Conclusion and limitations

I know, putting in the effort to read the full text is always the best option. But since that is not really an option for me, I go through great lengths to find other means. In addition, AI is not a human and might not catch all nuances or even worse, might hallucinate and provide incorrect information. The point is is not to cut corners, but to get sufficient information out of a text according to your needs.

Now please someone make this into a tool that combines all these features.