(this blog post is also available as a youtube video)
I would like to introduce my new book. It's called "Generative AI in the Nutshell, how to Survive and Thrive in the Age of AI." It is essentially the book version of my video with the same name that I released about a little more than a year ago. That video went super viral (3 million views now!), and I've been working with AI full-time since then learned a lot! So this fall I decided to sit down and put all that into a book, which follows the same format of the video, but expands on it a lot.
There's two editions of the book. There's this fancy hardcover edition with nice colorful drawings and illustrations.
And then there's the cheaper, but still fine looking, black and white version. It's the same exact content, the only difference is that the hardcover is in color and looks more like a coffee-table book. The hard cover is pretty expensive because of the printing cost, so I wanted to offer some options.
Where to buy the book:
- Amazon.com (hardcover, paperback, kindle). Use your own country's amazon site (ex: Amazon.se for Sweden) to minimize shipping time and cost.
- LeanPub.com (ebook). Also has as free sample with a few chapters from the book.
Translated versions are available on LeanPub (scroll down to the bottom of that page), and on the respective Amazon country sites.
To give this article a bit of structure, I asked my friend Claude to suggest some suitable questions. So I'm going to structure this kind of like an interview.
Question 1: What inspired you to write this book?
I would say mainly the incredibly positive reactions from the Gen AI in a Nutshell video. It clearly made a difference to people, helped them understand what Gen AI is and how they could use it.
I use Gen AI every day, building stuff, teaching, experimenting, doing keynotes, etc. Since making the video I've co-founded Ymnig.ai, and been working with clients and working on our agent platform, and I've just learned a lot. So I felt like my head was full and I just wanted to get more out there. So I used the video as a starting point and then just expanded on pretty much everything. And it was nice to be able to have this space to do that instead of having to compress everything into this very short 18 minute video.
Question 2: How is this book different from what viewers already saw in your video?
Well, as I mentioned, mainly it just goes into a lot more depth. I split it into two parts:
- Part 1 follows the same format as the video. It's the same basic narrative, but of course with a lot more detail. Think of part one kind of like a meal where each piece fits together into one whole,
- Part 2 is more like a buffet with different parts, different essays that are independent. For example, how I got into AI, tips on how to lead an AI transformation, retrieval augmented generation, using AI for software development, more prompt engineering techniques, AI agents, just a lot more stuff. So you could kind of choose how much detail you want.
But the main difference is there's just more in there. Another difference is that I've learned a few things since I made the video. So the book is obviously more up to date.
Question 3: Who is the book for?
The book is actually for everyone. I haven't selected any specific type of audience. It's a very broad audience.
For beginners, you kind of learn what this is, you get the big picture and how can this technology actually help you. And for more experienced people, you get a lot of specifics, like more advanced techniques, use cases you probably haven't thought of. One of the things that inspired me was the fact that the video clearly reached a very broad audience - kids, teachers, university professors, project managers, parents, retirees - just a very, very wide audience. So that's kind of my goal with the book as well.
Question 4: If I'm not technical and don't work with computers, will the book still benefit me?
Yes, I really think it will. Like I mentioned, the book is not really very technical. There are some chapters that are technical, but you can of course skip those. I've tried to avoid using strange buzzwords, anything that'll confuse people, and instead have the book really give you the big picture and an understanding of how everything fits together. And most importantly, how you, as a human can really make use of this technology as a tool in your life.
Question 5: If readers could only remember one insight from your book, what would you want it to be?
I would say experiment! Try this stuff. Don't overthink it. Just start using the technology in your day-to-day work.
And the reason for that is, well, it's the best way to learn. But also, there's a lot of uncertainty about the future. What does the future look like when this technology is used all over the place? What happens when the AI models get smarter and smarter? No one really knows what's gonna happen, but one thing is a fairly safe bet, and that is if you understand how to use the technology, at least at some level as a tool, then you'll be better equipped for whatever that future looks like.
Question 6: Which languages is it available in?
It is actually available in 32 languages! I wrote it in English and then AI-translated it to 31 more languages. You can access them from the various Amazon country sites, or get the full list at the bottom of the LeanPub page.
Are those good translations? Well, I did some blind testing with that and concluded that they're actually pretty good, but not quite as good as if a human had done it. But I still shipped it because I wanted the book to be accessible to non-english speakers. The translations are technically correct as far as I could see, just that some of the phrasings aren't quite the way you might have phrased it if you were a native speaker.
So for that reason, I've set up a community process (a github project) where people can help improve the AI translations:
Question 7: With AI evolving so rapidly, how have you ensured the content remains relevant?
That's a really good and a very relevant question. Great questions so far, Claude!
Let's take the Gen AI in a Nutshell video as an example. It's a year old, but surprisingly I would say it's mostly still relevant. I put quite a lot of effort into thinking about what kind of things to bring up in the book - which things are likely to go out of date really quickly, and which things are likely to stay relevant.
But obviously it is a fast moving field, so I might make some updated editions later one, we'll see.
Question 8: What was the most challenging thing about writing this book?
Honestly, just getting it done.
I got off to a promising start, isolated myself in my cabin and wrote the first draft in a week, super focused.
But then I kept coming up with more things to add later, because the technology keeps shifting and advancing. So it was really hard to just draw the line and say "this is good enough. I don't care if something interesting happens next week, I'm just gonna ship it". That was a big challenge. But I managed to draw the line after a while, which is great. And like I mentioned, I still have the option to write new editions later.
Another challenge was actually designing the book cover. I wanted a hand-drawn image to convey the core message of the book. I finally decided to go with this very simple little picture of an AI and a human kind of walking together, collaborating. Because that's my way of seeing it. I think of it as a tool, but a tool with a brain. or at least some kind of intelligence. Not necessarily self-awareness, but definitely some kind of intelligence. A useful mental model is to think of it as a colleague or friend who you're working with. So I tried to convey that with a simple picture.
An interesting side story there. In my first version of this picture, I showed it to my son and I also showed it to ChatGPT and asked: "what does this picture convey?" They both gave the same answer: "It looks like a human running for his life from a robot".
That was the exact opposite of what I wanted to convey! It turned out that all I needed to do was move the robot just a few millimeters down and closer to the human, so it looks like they're walking next to each other. Just that small difference, and then both my son and ChatGPT agreed that, yeah, this looks like a picture of a human and an AI walking together side by side, collaborating.
It's interesting how just such a small difference can make such a huge difference in our brains.
So coming up with a cover was kind of tricky, but I'm very happy with the way it ended up.
Question 9: Which publisher did you go with and why?
I used LeanPub, a self-publishing platform.
The reason why I didn't use a traditional publisher, which I've done for my previous three books, is because traditional publishers tend to take time. I wanted to get this book out quickly. There are some other reasons as well, but that was one of the main ones.
I used a service that LeanPub offers called Global Author, and that was amazing! I can really recommend that if you're an author.
It is like a kind of concierge service. It's still your book, you are in the pilot seat and own all the decisions - but they help you with all the kind of nitty gritty stuff like formatting the cover, getting stuff up on Amazon, layout of the book, converting to different formats, discussions around pricing, etc. And they also managed the AI translation process
I really appreciated was how helpful and accomodating they were, without forcing me to make decisions that I didn't want to. It felt kind of like I got all the best parts of having a publisher without getting all the worst parts.
Question 10: Did you really write this book or was it written by AI? Be honest now.
Believe it or not - I wrote it. This is a human written book, or I would say a mostly human written book. My sidekick Egbert, an AI character, wrote the forward and added some sarcastic comments here and there in the book. He also has a Twitter / X.com account. I also let him write a chapter on his own life story because honestly I think it's hilarious.
Other than that it's a human written book, but with AI assistance. I used AI for help as an editor, as a sounding board, and for all kinds of things. I could have used AI a lot more for the actual writing, and as a reader you probably wouldn't have noticed a difference, but I wouldn't have felt as proud of it. I wanted this to be my book, so I've sweated it through and obsessed over every sentence in the book - multiple times.
And the images? All the little doodles are hand-drawn by me, because I like drawing. The fancier photo-realistic illustrations are AI-generated, but they are quite few. So this is a mostly human-illustrated book as well.
Question 11: What's your favorite part of the book that wasn't covered in the original video?
I would probably say all the real life stories. The book is full of little anecdotes and examples. I've noticed through this book and all my previous books and videos that people appreciate real life examples, they help make things clear. So having the chance to tell the stories and share what I've learned felt really nice.
I also enjoyed writing about autonomous AI agents. We've developed an AI agent platform, and in the book I had a chance describe what agents mean in practice, and this strange new world we're entering where probably every team and company will have AI colleagues in the form of agents.
Please review the book
OK I'll stop here. I hope this was an interesting article, and I hope you enjoy the book if you choose to buy it and read it.
Oh yeah, one more thing. It's a new book, so I'd appreciate any help with spreading the word. If you read the book, please add a review. That kind of stuff is always super useful.
