// ABOUT ME Site: https://nicolevanderhoeven.com Mastodon: https://pkm.social/@nicole My travel YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/c/luckydippers k6 YouTube channel: https..." --- AI Tools for PKM and Obsidian  ## Metadata - Author: [[Nicole van der Hoeven]] - Full Title: AI Tools for PKM and Obsidian - Category: #articles - Document Note: Nicole recommends the Ghostreader, ChatGPT, Text Generator and Napkin plugins. 1. How does the Ghostreader AI tool work? 2. What other AI tools can help with personal knowledge management? 3. What are the potential risks associated with using AI? AI tools can be used to improve learning processes. Ghostreader from Readwise Reader is a feature that can be used to summarize documents. ChatGPT is a tool that can help spark ideas and Text Generator is a plugin for Obsidian that can help with writing out articles or notes by providing prompts and templates. The fourth app is a new tool that can help with generating ideas related to a specific topic. The video is about the use of AI tools for personal knowledge management and Obsidian. The speaker talks about five different AI tools that he is using in his system, including Ghostreader from Readwise Reader and ChatGPT. He explains how these tools can be used to summarize articles, generate thought-provoking questions, and help with reading, writing, linking, and visualizing ideas. He also mentions that the underlying algorithm for these tools is GPT-3 developed by OpenAI. - Summary: Here are some AI tools for learning and taking notes that I've incorporated into my processes. AI is a controversial topic, but it's important to remember it's just like any other technology: it's only as good as the people that wield it. In this video, I show some ways I use artificial intelligence to improve my learning and note-taking rather than to replace them. // RESOURCES MENTIONED Readwise Ghostreader: https://readwise.io/nicole ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/ Obsidian Text Generator plugin: https://github.com/nhaouari/obsidian-textgenerator-plugin Napkin: https://napkin.one/?via=nicole Midjourney: https://midjourney.com/ // TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Intro 00:36 For reading - Readwise Ghostreader 04:15 For summarizing - ChatGPT 06:45 For writing - Obsidian Text Generator 10:19 For linking - Napkin 16:33 For visualizing - Midjourney --- // ABOUT ME Site: https://nicolevanderhoeven.com Mastodon: https://pkm.social/@nicole My travel YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/c/luckydippers k6 YouTube channel: https... - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKWY33MXLvI&ab_channel=NicolevanderHoeven - If you were to make a list of existential fearsthat we have as a species and are obsessed with,artificial intelligence would be on that list.But just like with any other technology,if we use it instead of just letting it use us,then it does come with a potential of improvingmany of our processes, including the ones for learning.In this video, I'm gonna talk about five different AI toolsthat I'm already usingin my personal knowledge management system,in particular for reading, writing, summarizing, linking, and also visualizing ideas.The first is Ghostreader from Readwise Reader.Readwise is a service that kind of acts like a middlewarebetween your notes and the content that you consume.So you consume content, it goes into Readwise,and Readwise brings it over into Obsidian.Now, they also have an app that they call Reader,which is just an easy way to consume that data,whether it's articles, or newsletters,or a bunch of other things. I've made a video about it here.But in this video, I wanna talk about Ghostreaderin particular.This is a relatively new featurethat I've briefly talked about before,but let's look at how it works.So, this is Reader here.I've got an article open and there's lots of text here.So let's say I don't have much timeI can hit Command + K to open up their command palletand then, I can type Ghostreaderor I could have also used the keyboard shortcut Shift + G. So, let me enter that now.And then, there are a few things that I can ask it to do.So, let's say summarize the document.You see the little ghost icon that comes up over thereand then, you can go into Notebook here.And it says GPT added to document noteand it says"Paizo Inc. has announced the creationof a new open, perpetual, and irrevocableOpen RPG Creative License."So, this is actually really good.It went through a lot of paragraphs and this paragraph is not a direct word for word copyof any one of these.In fact, I'm not seeing any single sentencethat even starts the same way.So, it is a little bit smarter,a little bit more human than maybe you might think.So, let's try something else.How about generate thought provoking questions?And again, this will appear in the notebook here.All right, so now here are some questions.How will the Open RPG Creative License differ from the existing open game license?So, these are actually really good questionsand questions that also didn't appearin the text the way that they are here.Let's try ask the document a question and I'll say,"Why is Paizo creatinga new open license?"Let's see if it can answer that."Paizo's creating a new open licensebecause they believe that open gaming makes games better, improves profitability."Okay, this is an excellent answer.Maybe it's something that some other companiesshould have thought of.Ghostreader uses GPT-3.GPT-3 is an algorithm that was developedby a company in San Francisco called OpenAI.And a lot of these AI toolsare based on this very smart algorithm.Readwise uses Ghostreader as a way to summarize articles,but also as a way to generate prompts so that you can think more criticallyabout the things that you read.In this case, there's a lot of legalese that's hereand it could be useful for someoneto just get a quick summaryof what this article is all about.It isn't supposed to be a replacement.This kind of reminds me of another servicethat I like, Shortform,where it isn't about just a pure summary.That is one of the things that it does.But I think that the best way to use AI for readingis to let it compliment your reading. So actually, read the thing and make your highlightsand you know, make your notes.But then, also ask GPT-3 or Ghostreader a few questionsand see if your answers would line up with its answers.Another tool that I'm usingwhich is using the same backbone as Ghostreaderbut it's a little bit more openin that you don't just ask questionsabout a specific article is called ChatGPT.You might have heard about this already.You can go to it at chat.openai.com and you can create your own account.It is completely free, at least for now.Though I'd be surprisedif they didn't start charging people for this at some point,but it is a little bit more freeform.So, there's no article that's open.You can just type a question.So you can say,"What is the Zettelkasten method?"You can enter thatand it's going to type stuff out word per word. And it's saying that it's,"A system for organizing and connecting notes or ideasdeveloped by," okay, "Niklas Luhmann."So yeah, I think it's gotten the gist of itand you can regenerate responseor you can ask it questions as if this were a conversation.So, I type, "Why should I care about that?"It knows without me sayingwhy should I care about the Zettelkasten methodology.It knows that I'm still talking about the same thing.It has a lot to say about the Zettelkasten method. Okay, so I can also open up a new chat.And just for something a little bit different,let's try something like so I just said,"Give me an exposition for an adventurefor three party members in a forestwhere a gold dragon lurks."Now, I'm not mentioning the terms tabletop role playing gameor Dungeons and Dragons, or any of the better systemsthat you can play but it is giving like a narrative lead in.So you can use this for role playing games, but you can also use this for stories.So this is a whole thing with like a conflict that's saying,"As they continue their journey, the party comes acrossa group of druids.And the druids revealthat the dragon is not an evil creature."I didn't type any of that.So that's actually kind of interestingthat it can be a tool for sparking ideas.So it's not just about summarizing.ChatGPT is kind of like having a friend that has read a lot and can switch styles like from technicalto more fantastical like in the fiction areaand is really a good sounding board.You might not use all of this,but hey, they came up with some pretty good ideas.The third app I'm using is an Obsidian pluginand it is particularly good for writing out anything,like an article or a note.So I've opened a new note hereand I'm going to call it,Why artificial intelligence can be dangerous.So, I'm just gonna type in a sentence or sojust so it has something to work with.(keyboard clanking)Now, I typed out a couple sentences hereand I'm going to open up the command pane,that's Command or Control + P, and then type Text Generator.And I'm just going to do generate textwhich is like the most basic one.And what that's doing is it's looking at a few things, the title and the words that are already in the note.So it kind of continued on from that first line of thought.And it says it, "Can also be dangerous'cause it can make decisionswithout considering the ethical implications."See, that's really awesome.I didn't instruct it to think like thatbut it provided me that next paragraph.So there are a few other things that it can do.So if we go back into Text Generatoryou can have also a templates package manager. So I already have the DALL-E 2and the default prompts package here.You can even have this generate images,but I'm talking about writing right nowbecause that's what I mainly use it for.And you can also generate an insert template.You'll see I already have a hot key for this'cause I do use this sometimes.And there are so many things that I could dothat all of these are the prompts that I installedfrom the default prompt package and from the DALL-E package as well.So these are all photos, but what if I wantlike I wanted to brainstorm ideas.So I'm going to select that and it's thinking.Those little dots mean it's thinking.And here's how an article could goif I wanted to write about this,"The importance of human oversight,"which touches on a theme that I startedin the first couple of sentences.And then the uses for AI, potential risks. So what I use this for is when I'm stuck, you know,and I don't want to start with nothing,I want to have something to work with at least.And another thing is if I open up those templates again,I can say generate an outline.And it should go and look at all of the keywordsthat are on this note right nowand then spit out like some headings.There's even an introduction and a conclusion.So first there's like, I like how it's like a problem and then solutions, and then conclusion.It's kind of like thesis, antithesis, and synthesiswhich is the Hegelian dialect.So, I like that there's some logic to it.It's not just randomly spitting out keywordsthat happen to be similar, you know.It's actually a pretty good algorithmthat has gone through a lot of iterations.So this is useful.I would not trust this entirely.I wouldn't use it to write my work basically. I would use it to generate ideas.And that's what I mean by it helps me to write,not that it writes the things that I write on its own.But that it gives me other ideas for thingsthat I didn't consider might have been relatedto this topic.The fourth app is something that's really awesomeand I'm really excited about it.And it's also really new.Honestly, it's not new to people.It's just new to me because I saw it come up. And I got access to itand I thought, "I don't really need this."And it takes a while to understand what it actually can dofor my systems.This new tool is called Napkin.Napkin solves the issue of having a lot of disparate noteswithout any real connections between them.One of the hardest parts about taking notesor taking good notes is actually processing them.And during that process, I usually try to tag them or you know, add links to some notes.And then, it always is a little bit mixed.Sometimes, I feel really goodand I do all of the right linkages that I can think ofand I'm thinking clearly,but sometimes I'm just tired, you know?And I don't really feel like going through everythingthat I've read and making it easy to find later on.Napkin solves that by using AIto apply those tags for me,so I don't have to do any of it myself. It doesn't work with Obsidian yet,but it does work with Readwise,which is the service that I had mentioned earlierwith the Ghostreader AI reading tool.So, let me show you what Napkin looks like.This is Napkin.And one of the best ways to start,I think, is to sync your Readwise account.And that's because if you're like me,you already have a lot of notes in Readwiseand that way you can just dump a lot of them in there. And then, you can import them one by one.And I've heard that they're going to be wayswhere you can import more of your Readwise tools by bulk.And then, you can start your daily review here.This is like a bit of a spaced repetition element to itwhere it shows you things that you haven't reviewed.The idea is that at the beginning of the day,you spend some time just going through a few of the notesthat you haven't looked at.And that sounds like a chore,but honestly it's kind of cool. The interface is really a pleasure to useand it's only like a handful of notes a day.So, let's go and start a review now.So, "The four central components of TestOps."So right now, you can see it's already tagged thiswith organization hierarchy documentation.So, I would tag this with TestOpsand then, I'm going to hit the right arrow keyto go to the next stop.That's it.Like that's all that I didbecause they already tagged things.So, you can go through here and just review these notes and you don't even have to tag them.Sometimes, they're already tagged for you.In this case, I'm going to add some tags, like work.You see when I typed in work,there are these new things that came upbecause they're also tagged work.Now, the cool thing is that most of these,Napkin tagged on its own.I didn't really do it.It's just automatically exploring these linkages between them.So then I can see, oh, I have work culture here as well.This one isn't about work culture,but, huh, I wonder that might be interesting.So I'll type in, I'll click on work culture.And now, I have a lot more notes.And it's even pulling up thingsthat maybe are just tangentially related.Like this one doesn't have work cultureand it's more about friendship.So, a different kind of relationship.So, I could just keep on clicking different tags here and just explore my notes in this way.So, maybe I wanna think about power.Now if you'd asked mehave I really highlighted anything about power,I would say no.But I think Napkin's proving me otherwiseand it's finding things that are already there.So, how would I use this?I see two use cases for it.One is like a daily review sort of thingand that's when you're not really researchinga particular topic. You are just kind of looking for serendipity.And I would go into hereand review all of the thoughtsthat I haven't looked at in a whileand then, think about applying them to whatever it isthat I'm working on in that day.And then, the second use case for itis if I'm already researching or actively workingon something.I could go in hereand then, look into one of these particular keywords.So if I want to do artificial intelligence,I might look at that. And I don't have artificial intelligence as a tag yet,but I do have intelligence.So, let's go and have a look at those thoughts.So, this is about deciding in advance what to fail at,you know, the idea that intelligenceinvolves emotional intelligence.So I can go through all of theseand just kind of explore it, huh?Intelligence and essentialism are linked.So, what if I click on that?And now, this is talking about politicsand you can see that I can jump from one thread to another. But these are my thoughts, my highlights,so there's still an element of me providing the inputfrom Readwise, but it's not me that's categorizing them.And this is like a very nice higher levelbefore I start writing somethingor maybe during a writing session.If I'm looking for inspiration,I like to go in here and just kind of explore what's here.If you click on this link, then you can try it out for 30 days.And you can cancel before then if you don't like itor if you do like it, then you can continue to sign upfor one of their plans.Personally, I signed up for the $300 Believer plan,which is like a lifetime thing.So, that goes to show you how much I love itand how I think I'm really going to be using itgoing forward as well.I think they're a very cool teamand definitely worth a look.That was a very brief look at Napkin. Let me know in the comments belowif you wanna hear more about it.The fifth app that I've been using for AIin my PKMS stack is called Midjourney.And you might be surprised because Midjourney is an AI,but it's meant for images.So, it doesn't do words at all.It uses the same engine.But instead of analyzing a body of words,it analyzes images and the connection to words.So how it works is in Discord, in a server,like this is my Patreon server, you can type Imagine once you have the Midjourney bot set upand you can type in really anything that you want.So, I just typed out sci-fi, cyberpunk, dystopianand queen in a post-modern fantasy setting.And let's see what it comes back with.So, these are the results after a minute or so.Here are Midjourney's interpretationsof what it is that I typed out.And they are so different and all of them are awesome. So from this point, I can request variationsby clicking on the Vs hereor I can also just blow up one of these images.I kind of like them all,so I'm going to upscale all of thembecause they are awesome.And then, when they're done,you can click on them and they're much biggerand full scale.These are so cool.I think I might actually just use it for some games that I have coming up that are set in a sci-fi dystopia.But you might think that this is just for games.It's not.You can really put in anything.My good friend Zsolt who has an awesome channelabout visual PKM actually has a videowhere he shows how to use Midjourneyfor creating icons for visual thinking.So then, once you have these icons,you can put them in your notes to express an idea.It's a way for people like me who aren't artists and can't really draw themselvesto visualize something using words.So, it's really perfect for me.And here's another thing that you might not have realized.If you clicked on this video,you might have seen that nice background.It was generated by AI.The prompt that I used for it was simple black outlineof robot writing a book, stylized outline,red pigment background.And that's what it came up with.It was not what I was thinking,but it really was interesting enough for me to use it as my thumbnail.So, Midjourney is one of those apps I never thoughtI would pay for.I am not an artist myselfand I didn't really know what I would use it for,but I find it surprising me in the most delightful waysand it really challenges my preconceptions.Sometimes, it gets things right.Sometimes, it doesn't get things right.But whatever it is, it's always interestingthat it comes up with.So, that's five different AI-based tools that I'm already using today.Will AI in the future take over our jobsor the world or cheapen creative work as we know it?Well, that kind of depends on us.All AI depends on data.So by giving it quality input,we can ensure that we're using it in the right way.We can use artificial intelligenceto do a little bit of the grunt work,so that we are freed up to explore higher levelsof creativity and thought.If you liked hearing about Readwise Reader, but you wanna hear more about how to use it,then check out this video where I go over just that.Thanks for watching. Kita kits sa McDo!, AI Tools for PKM and Obsidian, Nicole van der Hoeven, 01grf0e11cgbwmam8wtg334m6x.