Just Broad Concepts, No Strategies or Tactics

When I think of how-to books, as leads off this audiobook’s title, I expect a book that will instruct me about how to do something. While this book had some interesting information, it certainly missed that mark completely. In the subtitle, the author also calls AI and ChatGPT the “ultimate side hustle idea.” That may be true, especially as we move into the brave new AI world, but this audiobook is certainly far too general and short to be anything “ultimate.” The book is, indeed, chock full of ideas about how we use AI now and how it will be used more in the future. The emphasis isn’t always on making money with it; its current and potential use is more the topic of the audiobook. FYI, there wasn't much emphasis on ChatGPT or ChatGPT prompts at all. It pretty much stops at use and current concepts. It is broadly divided into different things you can do with AI, but the author just skims the surface.

The book has way more than the 25 ideas the author promised in the subtitle, but the ideas are just presented as high-level concepts. You're not given strategies about how to use AI to make money, let alone any tactics. To draw a comparison, imagine you had a book called “How to Write a #1 Best-selling Pageturner,” but all the book told you was to choose a solid, universal theme; draw complex protagonists; create a nuanced 3- or 4-part plot with supportive subplots; have a cast of diverse secondary characters to act as foils, friends, and villains; describe a well-thought-out world/setting, etc.--but didn’t actually tell you how to achieve any of these. You could just about pull that from any decent general fiction writing book (or even blog post)--but, how do you do it? Such is the case here. As in writing, don't just tell us: show us something!

Some ideas presented left me feeling very uneasy, even though the author often talked about ethics and using your own voice, not just going with whatever AI says if you are using it for creative purposes. I have experience in both the medical and legal fields, and the author's suggestions for these were at times unethical and possibly illegal, depending on your jurisdiction. For instance, in the legal section, he recommends using AI to create a legal advice business without being a lawyer! That’s a good way to get in trouble! Some ideas mentioned didn't even really seem to have much to do with AI. For instance, telehealth done by a doctor (as suggested in the audiobook) is typically done person to person through something like Zoom or a phone call, doctor to patient. I've been a telehealth patient, and AI is not involved at any point, at least not at my doctor's practice.

So many of the author’s suggestions wouldn't work for most people as they don’t have the expertise needed—AI doesn’t do everything, after all—or it would take a fair amount of time to learn a new skill and then market your side hustle successfully to earn any money. A surprising number of suggestions had to do with creating AI apps or integrations to help people implement the book’s ideas! Unless you're looking for a book with a lot of ideas but no strategy or tactics to see if something clicks, this book would probably not be worth your time. On the plus side, the narrator is decent with a lot of enthusiasm for the topic. That at least makes it entertaining listening even if there's not much take-away substance in the book.

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