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Old 12-29-2025, 06:21 PM   #1
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AI and technical books
I was listening to NPR, and there was a segment on AI and publishing (I can't find it online ). One interesting point was how AI could be used for publishing technical books. The technical data of the "book" could be entered, and AI could be used to generate different books for different audiences: one for professionals, one for students, those just curious, ...

Sounded like an interesting application.
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Old 12-29-2025, 08:47 PM   #2
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I got to be a beta reader for one such effort though that was producing age appropriate versions of the book. Sadly, the results weren't too great, the children's version was especially iffy since the AI included several bits that were not age appropriate. The YA version ended up with sudden jumps as if pages had vanished. The original story wasn't that great either since basically sword and sorcery with added sex scenes.
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Old 12-29-2025, 09:48 PM   #3
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I got to be a beta reader for one such effort though that was producing age appropriate versions of the book. Sadly, the results weren't too great, the children's version was especially iffy since the AI included several bits that were not age appropriate. The YA version ended up with sudden jumps as if pages had vanished. The original story wasn't that great either since basically sword and sorcery with added sex scenes.
Just to be clear, the idea discussed in the segment was for non-fiction technical books.
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Old 12-30-2025, 03:47 AM   #4
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I was giving an example of how AI did with modifying a book. Given the high error rate expected with current AI (one site's AI systems review showed 40% as the average number of errors for ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Claude AI etc.), I suspect that a combination of AI and human would be needed.
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Old 12-30-2025, 07:24 AM   #5
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I was giving an example of how AI did with modifying a book. ...
I wish I could find the NPR segment. But my impression was this wasn't "modifing" a book. The process described sounded different to me then the current AI "training".

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Given the high error rate expected with current AI (one site's AI systems review showed 40% as the average number of errors for ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Claude AI etc.), I suspect that a combination of AI and human would be needed.
I assume that currently traditional published books/ebooks are going through some sort of human editing/review. I would hope that AI generated technical non-fiction books would have human editing/review.
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Old 01-01-2026, 03:27 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by DNSB View Post
I got to be a beta reader for one such effort though that was producing age appropriate versions of the book. Sadly, the results weren't too great, the children's version was especially iffy since the AI included several bits that were not age appropriate. The YA version ended up with sudden jumps as if pages had vanished. The original story wasn't that great either since basically sword and sorcery with added sex scenes.
Until last sentence I thought you were talking about technical books and wondered how it could be not age appropriate.
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Old 01-01-2026, 03:49 PM   #7
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I guess it depends on how technical you get.
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Old 01-01-2026, 04:05 PM   #8
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Well, this documentation gets a bit frisky. I love weird tranlations.
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Old 01-01-2026, 04:43 PM   #9
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That application for glue doesn't seem appropriate for any age.
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Old 01-02-2026, 03:38 PM   #10
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It doesn't seem useful to me. If I'm an expert user, I'll be better off with the list of facts. Having them padded with generated text will only make it harder to find the useful info. If I'm a beginner, I'll need someone with actual intelligence and knowledge of the topic to decide which of the facts are important and which can be left out, and to explain them in a way that helps me understand them. And for all users, there's a big risk of the AI text containing inaccuracies, outdated information, and outright mistakes.

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I assume that currently traditional published books/ebooks are going through some sort of human editing/review. I would hope that AI generated technical non-fiction books would have human editing/review.
The only reason to use AI for this instead of hiring competent people to write the books is to save money. So while the publishers might hire someone for a quality review, there's little chance that they would pay for subject experts to spend enough time to do it properly.

I tried out one of those text generators at work, and one of the mistakes it made was switching one word with another, in a way that doesn't matter in everyday speech, but in a technical context the difference was significant. That kind of error can be really hard to spot when reviewing.
Last edited by hildea; 01-02-2026 at 03:41 PM.
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Old 01-06-2026, 09:39 AM   #11
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Originally Posted by DNSB View Post
I was giving an example of how AI did with modifying a book. Given the high error rate expected with current AI (one site's AI systems review showed 40% as the average number of errors for ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Claude AI etc.), I suspect that a combination of AI and human would be needed.
When I read AI stuff it either reminds me of an infomercial or kids repeating themselves using slightly different phrases, so they can get up to the 500 word minimum.

I'm kind of a sucker for Irish music, so I listened to something called "The Fields of the Forgotten" on YouTube. Redundant and poor AI graphics but I figured (at first) that it was an actual group singing, just cheesy AI because it was quick and easy. The AI singing wasn't bad, but I've heard the same voices before in obvious AI music videos. Then I started listening closer to the lyrics. Pretty sure the whole thing was AI now, because humans wouldn't write "Where hungry feet once wondered home." Hungry eyes, maybe, but "hungry feet?" The wind "hums" their names (humming doesn't articulate) and the wind "hums lullabies" (lullabies are totally out of character for the mood of the song). Hums dirges, maybe. "And kept no flame of fame." Fame? The song is talking about those who died in the famine (I believe) so completely "out of character" for the song's mood. "Rivers learn to cry," (how would you tell?). That would fit better with rain (mentioned) and the dark mood, if it was the sky that "learned to cry."

AI reminds me of people who want to use words or phrases they don't fully understand. Anything written or modified with AI is definitely something I would not want to endure. Too many technical books tend to be wordy as it is. Add AI redundancy and inaccuracy and it would really be monotonous and tedious reading.
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Old 01-06-2026, 12:39 PM   #12
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That application for glue doesn't seem appropriate for any age.
I don't think rubber mats are capable of doing that... With or without glue.
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Old 01-06-2026, 05:57 PM   #13
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I don't think rubber mats are capable of doing that... With or without glue.
Well, not with that attitude.
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Old 01-10-2026, 09:14 PM   #14
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Well, this documentation gets a bit frisky. I love weird tranlations.
I've come across some very amusing really poor translations/malapropisms, but that is truly the weirdest I've ever seen!
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