The author is the head of Microsoft AI. Gates might not be entirely unbiased here :)
edit: as a semi-related question for folks here. How often do you 'vet' authors of non-fiction books prior to reading the book?
edit: as a semi-related question for folks here. How often do you 'vet' authors of non-fiction books prior to reading the book?
I misread the question as 'How' rather than 'How often', but I'll repeat Jerry Weinberg's heuristic. He'd wait until three people he trusted recommended a book before reading it, as a way to filter for quality. He used it as a way to manage his limited time ("24 hours, maybe 60 good years" - Jimmy Buffett), but it also works to weed out books not worth mentioning.
In terms of 'how often', pretty often.
99% of books I learn about from recommendations (HN, blogs, other books), and the pattern I see is that the source/recommender are usually at the similar "popsci" level.
I sometimes get it wrong. In most cases I just waste a few hours. The worst mistake was taking Why We Sleep to heart before I read the rebuttal. I still think it's fine, but more on a Gladwell level.
Im Suleyman's case, I recognize the name from Inflection shenanigans, so already have a bias against the book to start with.
I do believe Bill Gates might be a little bit biased here. I read the book some months ago, and while I can't say it's a bad book, I wouldn't call it a favorite either.
If it's something i have no grounding in then understanding the authors' potential biases is useful.
If it's something I'm relatively familiar with or close enough that i think I'll be able to understand the application of potential biases in realtime then i don't usually bother.
This issue is sometimes somewhat alleviated by reading multiple sources for the same/similar information.
YMMV
It is the worst when these books are not written by people with scientific training because they are more likely to make logical errors or use motivated reasoning to push a narrative.
What if I tell you that you are shallow at best and incapable of critical thinking, from the comments you made on HN? Does that sound ridiculous on my end?