AI has transformed the way I read. Forever.
How ChatGPT-4o fulfilled a decade-long dream for this avid quote collector.
Walt Disney supposedly once said that there is “more treasure in books than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.”
For the best part of a decade, I’ve resolved to read a minimum of 52 books a year. Aside from the odd “classic” fiction book here and there, the vast majority of these are non-fiction.
It’s all part of a master plan I began working toward even as far back as 2012, but I my technical abilities stopped me from getting there.
AI has changed the game.
Let me explain.
The Concept: Daily Reading Highlights
The idea is simple: I can’t remember all of the information from all of these books all of the time. Instead, I love to highlight quotes and key ideas and return to those from time to time, so all of that information doesn’t slide into oblivion. For years, I’ve dreamt of a system that would send my highlights from three random books that I’ve read in the past to my inbox each day. This would mean that I could periodically remind myself of the key content of almost 500 books without having to re-read them.
Until recently, I’ve used variations of the following system (technology has changed over the years):
Step 1: Highlight quotes and key ideas on my Kindle.
Step 2: Export these highlights to a database (I currently use Readwise to do this automatically)
Step 3: Create a searchable knowledge database (I currently use Notion) that combines books, seminary content, sermons, articles, etc. For example, if I search for “prayer,” I can quickly take more than 10,000 quotes and view only those that specifically mention prayer.
It’s brilliant.
And it’s been years in the making.
However, while this has undoubtedly served me well and continues to become more effective as the database grows, I’ve never been able to implement a system that emails me the collected highlights from random books.
And I really wanted those random book highlights to be a part of my morning reading each day.
Despite the simplicity of the idea, it’s actually quite complicated to execute. Conceptually, I know what needs to happen, but don’t have the coding chops to pull it off. In the words of Kylo Ren:
But with the help of ChatGPT-4o, this dream recently became a reality.
It’s a gamechanger.
I’ll try to explain it for those who aren’t interested in the technical details, and if you’re interested in the specifics, feel free to reach out to me.
The Solution in Simple Terms: ChatGPT-4o
In order to pull the information from my Notion database and into an email, I needed to create some code that essentially talks to Notion, tells it what information to give me, and then packages it into a nice email for me.
I don’t know how to do that. But ChatGPT-4o does.
Step by step, it walked me through the process of writing some code using a language called Python, and even helped me change the styling of the email to look pretty good too!
Here’s what the code does:
It selects three random books from my “Master Bookshelf” database.
Collects the image, title, author, and link to the specific page.
Pulls them into an email, formats the images and texts, along with some extra bits and pieces.
Sends them to me at midnight every day.
I’ve been using this system for a little under a week, and it’s phenomenal. It’s a revelation to receive a chunk from a goldmine of information each morning.
This week I’ve been putting the finishing touches on some updates that enable the script to pull in Bible Gateway’s verse of the day at the top of the email and my personalized Google News headlines at the bottom (10 global, and 3 local), which means that I get a whole host of information heading in my direction at the start of my day. I love it!
A quick word about the process.
The interaction with ChatGPT-4o was by no means perfect. But what I really appreciated was the ability to interact with the coding it had produced.
For example:
I could copy any paste the error messages and ask ChatGPT-4o to both explain the problem and fix it for me.
It was very easy to ask ChatGPT-4o to change the appearance of the email or offer alternative solutions when there were issues.
Making the changes was as simple as copying and pasting the code into my editor and experimenting!
AI has transformed the way I read.
You might be wondering, “What on earth has this all got to do with the Church and AI?”
That’s a fair question.
In the next few weeks, I’ll share some of the ways I use artificial intelligence for ministry regularly—if not daily.
However, we often think of AI in terms of perpetual use cases, and I think that might be a mistake. This singular use—where AI helped me craft code to achieve something that was otherwise completely out of reach without considerable hours of support from my computer science friends—has already transformed the way I read.
Now, when I read new books, I know that every highlight I mark won’t be lost to the ravages of time and overstuffed databases. Like a digital boomerang, I can be confident that it will eventually find its way back into my consciousness once again. And I love that.
Supposedly, research says that the average person needs to hear something 2-7 times to memorize it. Now that I have an actual system to return to this sea of information, more of it can be retained, which is great. Of course, much will still be lost, but if this sort of process can help me even slightly in my preaching and pastoring for the sake of God’s Kingdom, that can only be a good thing.
I pray that this will be the case!
What do you think?
What singular use cases might you be able to develop for the sake of the church? I’ve got a whole bunch of ideas that I’m looking to explore in the coming months that I’m looking forward to sharing!
If you found this article helpful, consider reading my book “The Church and AI: Seven Guidelines for Ministry on the Digital Frontiers,” out now! If that’s not your thing, you could consider pledging a one-off gift or monthly donation here. No pressure, though. The fact you’re here is reward enough!