How to develop the most important skill for AI

A guide to building better judgement in AI by learning how to read papers.

Excerpt: "If you want to work in AI or with AI, you’ll have to read papers. The space moves too fast, and by the time breakthroughs hit most blogs, YouTube channels, or company press releases, the space has already moved on. Even when people like me cover the cutting edge as it happens, you’re still seeing it through a filter. My judgment shapes what I emphasize, what I skip, and how I frame it. I might dismiss something as obvious that’s actually a common misunderstanding in the wider community. I might focus on speculative possibilities because they’re intellectually exciting, while skipping over the fact that they’re commercially dead on arrival (it’s why

Cameron R. Wolfe, Ph.D., Sebastian Raschka, PhD and I have different breakdowns on Llama 4, even when all of us agree on the basic facts).

Put another way, commentary is valuable, but it’s biased. The only way to get the raw signal and make sure you spot what is important to you in your context is to read the research yourself."