Deep Reading In The AI Era

How Sustained Curiosity Is Your Greatest Asset in a World of Shortcuts

Hi there,

Today I’m going to write about deep reading in the AI era. While some want to tl;dr maximise, I think there are clear arbitrage opportunities to actually doing the deep reading, using AI tools as a jumping off point into further questioning and research. I’d be interested in your feedback on this view. Is there alpha in reading the docs?

The Attention Crisis in a Digital Landscape

In today's digital world, attention spans are getting shorter. People often spend hours scrolling through their phones, while advertisers have just moments to make an impression. Despite major world events that should make us think deeply, the hunger for quick content and instant rewards continues to grow.

This creates an interesting contrast: as more people skim content, the value of focused reading increases. Those who can read deeply now have a rare and valuable skill. If you can hold your attention to something for longer than a few minutes you are arbitraging against the lack of attention others are giving to the same knowledge.

The Benefits of Deep Reading

Research shows that deep reading offers real benefits that skimming doesn't provide. Reading thoroughly helps you think more clearly, analyse information better, and connect ideas from different sources. It helps you compare different viewpoints and understand complex topics.

These benefits help in real life, not just in school. They give you an edge in jobs that require careful thinking and planning. If you are working on a project, and you haven’t read the documentation, read the relevant legislation, read the relevant technical specifications and read the code or reviewed the data yourself what is even the point of being on the project?

Building Your Knowledge Base

A strong knowledge base comes from learning and remembering information in an organized way. Mental models are one way to think about this process. As you learn about a topic, you build knowledge that helps you quickly spot when something is wrong and understand why.

When you read widely across many subjects, you get better at spotting flawed arguments. You begin to recognize patterns of errors because you've seen them before in different contexts.

This knowledge grows over time, helping you solve problems faster. Your personal "context window" of experiences, memories, and knowledge expands through deep reading.

This compounding of knowledge over time is accelerated through deep reading. There is a reason why specialist areas exist - AI might make getting the overview faster - but until agent models get to the next level of capability - there is still a lot of value in knowing the primary sources of knowledge in any given domain.

Reading Deeply for Better Strategy

There's a clear link between deep reading and good strategic thinking. The skills you develop through thorough reading help create better business strategies. When executives constantly ask for things to be "simplified," it often signals a problem.

Senior leaders who are paid well have a duty to understand details. If they don’t, the top ones drill down and ask penetrating questions until they get the comfort they need. It's a key part of their job. When corporate culture increasingly pushes for oversimplification, it highlights that some leaders aren't fully engaged with their work - they’re going through the motions and leaving curiosity at the door.

Quick Summaries vs. Real Understanding

As AI tools make quick summaries easier to get, we face a choice: some people will only read summaries and never dig deeper, taking these shortcuts as complete answers rather than starting points for more learning.

This happens because many people only pretend to be curious. They don't really care how things work or why things happened in the past. They focus narrowly on their own goals without seeing the bigger picture.

While this approach might work for some individuals, it creates problems for society. Without experts who read and understand technical details, many parts of our modern world would stop working during major disruptions.

Supply Chain Knowledge Matters

Think about the recent tariff issues affecting global trade. Successful importers relied on team members who knew exactly which rules and procedures affected shipping containers from Asia to North America.

Many big companies were caught unprepared because they hadn't thoroughly studied the relevant body of knowledge despite literally depending on it. This raises questions about possible shareholder class action lawsuits, especially for companies that claimed they had reduced supply chain risks or were “managing the risks” of Trump-imposed tariff and trade volatility.

Curiosity Gives You the Edge

The winners in coming years will be truly curious people who see AI summaries not just as time-savers but as tools that help them learn even more. These people use technology to find more questions to answer and more sources to read. They add new information to what they already know because they genuinely want to know.

For these people, not knowing something feels uncomfortable and drives them to learn more. As our world gets more complex, this kind of curiosity and deep reading will separate those who just get by from those who really succeed.

The more time I’m spending experimenting with AI tooling of all types, the more I’m learning and the more questions I’m thinking up. Every Deep Research query spawns several more questions or avenues of research to drill into.

If you ever went on Wikipedia rabbit holes, it feels like we’re living in an era where Deep Research rabbit holes are 10x deeper at 100x the pace - again, it’s still shocking to me how many folks are still dismissing AI - if you’re not using this stuff every day by now for something to help you get across a new topic, figure out what to read next, or answer a question, I just fundamentally don’t get the lack of interest and experimentation outside terminally-online folks anymore.

Regards,

Brennan