{"id":1780,"date":"2026-01-14T21:06:01","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T01:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/?p=1780"},"modified":"2026-01-14T21:06:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T01:06:02","slug":"if-ai-writes-your-book-review-are-you-really-reviewing-the-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/14\/if-ai-writes-your-book-review-are-you-really-reviewing-the-book\/","title":{"rendered":"If AI writes your book review, are you really reviewing the book?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recently, Senator Todd Young wrote a post on LinkedIn<\/a>, where he shared that he tries to read on his trips between Indiana and Washington. He gave a run down of his 2025 books. I have no idea if Senator Young, or his staff, used AI to write the summaries, and in an effort to understand who is using AI where, I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Thanks for sharing and serving, Senator Young. I’m trying to better understand when individuals, including elected public servants, use AI for their writing.

Did you use any AI programs for your summaries of each book? \ud83e\udd16<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

No response from Senator Young, however, Ken Estabrook, Principal HR Staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, wrote me back:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Like you, I appreciate Senator Young\u2019s sharing his list. And, I would hope that he did use AI. (For all we know, someone on his staff may have written the post.) Not to take advantage of tools and systems in carrying out one\u2019s work would be a waste of time analogous to relying on pen-and-paper calculations instead of a calculator.

I think your question is interesting and useful. Increasingly, people use AI much as previous generations (like mine!) made use of the World Book Encyclopedia and other such resources. When we do so more formally (such as an academic paper), it is expected that one includes correct attribution. In conversations and other informal uses, people don\u2019t expect sources to be cited (although they may, of course, be requested). I think we can view the Senator\u2019s post on LinkedIn to be the latter, not the former.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To which, I replied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Thanks, Ken. I disagree with your assessment of conversations and informal uses. If someone is using AI, they should certainly cite that they have. Similar to if someone makes a claim in a conversation. A simple, “Where’d you hear that?” works. And it may be that they made it up, read it in a book, newspaper, or website, saw it on the news, etc. Knowing the source of information helps inform the reader. In the case of AI’s use, it requires the reader to proceed proceed with heavy skepticism since AI can, and often does, hallucinate information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To your other points:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • We’re not talking about math, we’re talking about personal book reviews.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • What is your impression of people who write longhand? Is that a waste of time if they could be typing it instead?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • And your analogy of comparing the use of AI to using the World Book Encyclopedia doesn’t hold water. If someone is using sources, secondary or primary, they still need to read them, interpret them, and write their thoughts about them. If they are copying the text verbatim, that’s not their views or thoughts, but a quotation. And that’s how many people use AI: send a prompt and copy\/paste the contents.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • I view using AI in what is supposed to be a personal communication (e.g. books I enjoyed) is a betrayal in the relationship the person has with their readers. And, if it is true in this case, their constituency.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    What do you think about LLMs writing summaries and then someone passing them off as if they are their own thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Recently, Senator Todd Young wrote a post on LinkedIn, where he shared that he tries to read on his trips between Indiana and Washington. He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[224,227,226],"class_list":["post-1780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-ai","tag-llm","tag-senator-todd-young","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1784,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions\/1784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybaiel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}