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We have reached the stage in the history of publishing where AI-generated books are hitting the shelves.
The other day, I was in Barnes & Noble, puttering through the technology section. I was shocked to see a book on the shelf about prompt engineering. Unlike computer engineering, structural engineering, or chemical engineering, prompt engineering isn’t an actual discipline.
Yet somehow, there was a 400-page manual right there on the shelf.
I forget exactly which of these books it was… But as you can see, many books have already been written on the topic (presumably using ChatGPT):
My heart goes out to whichever poor soul has to read these books.
This is, of course, only scratching the surface of the AI-generated content that is now inundating all mediums.
While AI brings powerful potential to speed up some types of writing in many fields, we are quickly discounting the value of domain expertise.
As someone who reads 50+ books a year, I know how much domain expertise matters in nonfiction. I don’t want to read a nonfiction book unless I’m learning from the best.
Domain expertise means the author has first-hand experience with what they are writing about. It means that the author has…
