Learn Stuff by Writing Your Own Textbook with AI

To learn machine learning, I’ve started writing my own textbook on machine learning at Artintellica. This fully customized textbook is designed just for me, with exercises that are exactly what I need to learn machine learning. (And, of course, I am making it open source so that others can benefit from it as well.)

As a non-expert, I can’t just write my own textbook from scratch. But this is the age of AI. Today, I can use AI tools like Grok and ChatGPT to help me write it. The basic process is that I query the AI to figure out what I need to learn, at what level, and design units (blog posts) that contain the material and exercises I need to master the content. The AI then writes each unit with exercises, and I complete the exercises to learn the material.

Before AI, of course, one could read a textbook to learn something. But reading an existing textbook is unlikely to present information in precisely the optimal order for a student to learn. A given textbook may include material the student already knows or content that is too advanced.

With AI, the student can simply ask for precisely the level of information they need to learn the material, creating a fully customized textbook. By using a tool like ChatVim, a plugin for Neovim that I created specifically to help me write Artintellica, the student can even easily publish the information on a website.

There are still reasons to write traditional textbooks. If you are an academic, you can teach LLMs the material you are an expert in. However, if you are learning information, especially if it is standardized material already contained in many existing textbooks, instead of reading a textbook off the shelf, it is more efficient to write your own textbook using AI tools, as it will be customized to your exact needs.