Reading, fast and slow, in the AI era: Lessons from Nexus

Sharpen your mind with full books and deep articles that build complete chains of thought—avoid bite-sized content that gives you an illusion of learning

I finally started to read the book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, by Prof. Yuval Noah Harari. The book is brilliant, but my biggest realization from it is why we—human—need to read full books.

We are in an information flood, and the so-called bite-sized information is starving our brains if we rely too much on them (short forms texts and videos, quotes, AI-generated summaries, etc)

Oversimplified content creates an illusion of learning, but it only reinforces what you already know.

I compared the mind map I generated using Gemini and my reading experience. What astonished me was how the mind map could make you feel like you’ve understood the book when you actually don’t. The nuance of the sentences, the way the author builds their argument and why they choose to start with certain ideas are all missing.

Take Chapter 2 as an example. In this chapter, the author talks about how stories connect people who are geographically distant and generations apart. My biggest takeaway is how we all buy into stories, knowingly or unknowingly. We want to know the stories of the people we admire—what it was like to live in a little village when they were seven years old, how they came up with an idea, and whether they had a dog.

But if you think about it, how does this help us make better decisions?

My another takeaway is that as long as a piece of information connects people and gives them a reason to act, we should take it seriously. Even when we recognize this, we can still buy into it. You may not believe in astrology, but if your cousin’s wedding is planned around it, your vacation plans will be too.

Are you buying chocolates or booking a table at a restaurant to celebrate Valentine’s Day? Or do you avoid restaurants because too many people are going? Millions of people’s actions are influenced by this kind of information. It doesn’t matter whether you know or believe in the history behind it.

It also makes me wonder whether we should rethink storytelling—one of the top leadership skills—and whether we rely too much on people who are particularly good at it.

And, what should we do when we encounter stories/information (e.g. what’s in news) that cause us pain? Do we just delete the app? Do we take action? How do we respond without being consumed by anger? I don’t know.

These ideas aren’t very structured, and the connections between them aren’t entirely clear—but that’s how brainstorming works.

However, none of these reflections came up when I reviewed the mind map I created with Gemini.

When you read a oversimplified summary, you’re just mapping the new ideas onto what you already know. It makes you feel like you’re keeping up with technical and intellectual advances, but in reality, you’re just reinforcing the same thoughts.

You’re not opening your mind; you’re closing it.

You Judge the New Ideas by Emotion, not by Logic.

Reading a full book allows us to see ideas develop over time. We engage with the evidence, follow the logic, and decide for ourselves whether the conclusions hold up. We might agree with some points while rejecting others. This is critical thinking in action.

But when we consume summaries or isolated quotes, our brain shifts into emotional mode. We either resonate with it and feel inspired, or we feel angry because it challenges something we deeply believe, and we reject it right away. Either way, we are reacting, not thinking. We don’t get to see how the author arrived at that point, what nuances they considered, or how they addressed counterarguments.

This is because when surface-level thinking use the System 1 in our brain, as explained in Thinking, Fast and Slow. In this book, Daniel Kahneman explains how our brain operates in two systems: System 1, which is fast, intuitive, and emotional, and System 2, which is slow, deliberate, and logical. When we rely only on quick takeaways, we default to System 1, reacting impulsively instead of engaging in deeper analysis. Our brain gets these dopamine learning bits and it’s satisfied. We are robbing it from the hard work. Once we move on to the next message, our mind quickly forget what we just read.

What Now? Read Slow, Think Slow, and Survive the Information Flood

Reading Nexus has made me reflect on how we learn and what truly counts as understanding in the AI era. By engaging deeply with this book, I’m experiencing firsthand what information is—and what it isn’t.

For the first time, I’m also thinking more seriously about AI security. I still believe that having powerful AI is better than not having it, because people only start taking ethical discussions seriously when the stakes are high. We saw this with nuclear weapons—no one wanted to create safety regulations until humanity had enough atomic bombs to destroy itself multiple times. Now, we have more than five powerful AI systems, and more are on the way.

Maybe it’s time.

Back to ourselves. (See? When you read a book, ideas just start coming all at once.)

We keep asking: What skills do we need in the AI era? What should we teach our kids? Creativity, critical thinking, and asking questions—these answers come up constantly. But here’s the harder truth: you can’t shortcut skill-building.

Imagine teaching a child. You wouldn’t just tell them, Gravity makes things fall. You’d ask, Why does the ball fall? Can we make it not fall? Yet as adults, we fill our brains with fast-food takeaways—flooded with “what” but starved of “why.”

And we use AI for a better reason: AI is coming; we need to keep up.

Don’t let FOMO get you.

AI is a great tool for learning. Think with it, brainstorm with it—but don’t let it do the hard thinking for you. Just like kids who start from scratch, we also need raw material: original articles and books that show how experts structure their thinking. Not conclusions. Not summaries. Not quotes. Chain-of-thought.

Which book are you reading next?