the literary equivalent of:
So they're ruining the original artistic vision, dumbing down literature despite existing whithin the greatest age of information, all while possibly ruining the original message and meanings of the book. Tech bros need to walk outside, touch grass, feel the warmth of the sun on their skin, and maybe try talking to an actual human for once in their life.
I'm proud of my demon spawn
She's a tech savvy electrical engineer who spends her working hours mucking about with semiconductors.
When she's not at work, which seems to be pretty much all day every day, she's out on remote hiking trails with primitive camping gear.
From this old man's perspective, she's living the ideal balanced life.
Computer engineer here. I’m similar, spend a lot of my time mucking w/ semiconductors & such at work - I wouldn’t quite say CompEs and EEs are “tech bros” though. Tech savvy? Sure! But tech bros I like to think are the people who are more interested in monetizing tech than actually knowing how to use it.
That said, I most certainly consider myself a demon spawn.
I dunno - if A.I. is suggesting tech bros launch themselves into the sun, I could maybe get behind it.
Not reading that essay
Found the apps target audience. Assuming that wasn't satirical.
Ah you never know. Turns out I'm both being satirical and a certified moron
Reduce teen literacy levels with this one easy step!!! Teachers hate it!!!
Did you mean “BADDEN YOUNG READNESS CHEAP!”
Brought to you by Brawndo©️*”FU, I’m Brawndoing!”*
I love that they picked a book that is 90% nuance and symbolism for a tool that destroys nuance and symbolism...it's like claymation Shakespeare celebrity death match.
Fuck it downvote me for having the wrong opinion but I am okay with this existing. Looking at the full feature list it has additional vocabulary learning tools and the reading level is scalable which might make this a hugely helpful tool for new or very young language learners.
CliffsNotes already exists, yes, but summaries are different from paraphrasing, and it is very hit or miss with the accuracy of its summaries which usually have terrible grammar and writing quality anyway, making it awful for most English learners’ applications.
Don’t like it? Don’t download it.
I don't have a problem with simplified versions of texts -- archaic language, ornamented prose, and obsolete cultural references shouldn't stand in the way of someone having access to the ideas contained in great literature. But I like it when people do the simplifying--like "Reader's Digest" versions, or Cliff's Notes, or whatever. It's a skilled profession that already doesn't get the credit it deserves, and I worry AI will eclipse human work with voluminous inferior results.
It's fine for nonfiction, but I don't see much point for contemporary fiction books. If it's not on your level, just something easier
"It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair”.
Becomes.... "Things were confusing"
I think many of you are quite unfair to who this might help. As an adult with dyslexia and English as my second language, this would let me have an easier time getting through literature and experience the stories as the are, not how they are written. I get that nuances and details are being lost in the conversation.
But if I still enjoy the greater story, does it really have to matter to you how I or someone else enjoys our reading?
Then why not just read the summary of the plot on Wikipedia? It's not about the nuances or the details, it's about actually taking the book versus knowing what the plot is about. The voice of the author matters, and if you're not getting that through a rewrite you're not getting the book as written.
Additionally, literature is one of the most effective ways we have of bettering our feel for a language, and expanding our comprehension and ability. This is even more true for second language acquisition.
There was a famous Hungarian interpreter in the 20th Century who claimed reading books was almost all she did to acquire languages. You just skip over the words you don't know, until after seeing it many times you get an "aha!" moment and work out what it means (and if it doesn't come up again then maybe it's just not that important?). She wrote about it in this book.
If you were to rewrite the text to remove the words completely you're depriving yourself from ever being able to improve your language, all the while sapping the colour and joy out from the words.
As for dyslexia, I don't have much experience with that but I do have with ADHD and getting distracted while reading, and have found audiobooks to be indispensable. I find them harder in foreign languages than my native, but that usually means I end up listening at 1x the speed rather than 2,5x the speed. I used to struggle getting through many books since leaving school until I could listen to them.
Turn HARD books into EASY books by learning what words mean!
It's not just that. A lot of hard books have bizarre sentence structures that lack clarity. So you are dealing with looking up words every few paragraphs (or skipping meanings) plus bizarre phrases and long confusing sentences.
It is so important to take the artistic out of art. Especially right now when shitgasming AI is spaffing out content with no artistic value whatsoever!
Yeah, this is fucking bullshit, but it's not like Cliff's notes haven't been a thing for a long time. This is just another way for someone being forced to read something to slack off. No one who actually wants to read the book would ever consider this.
What do you think of the Voice of America broadcasting news in Simplified English?
I'm alright with this sort of thing for use by ESL folks who read at a 4th grade level in English, would like to practice reading in English, but don't want to read a literal children's book.
This is actually a good thing. I know people who don't have the greatest grasp on English and would never try to read books with difficult (or older English) language. An easier to read version of classics could open up a new world for them.
Now I guess believing the AI will do it well is another conversation altogether.
This becomes problematic if young people who might be wise in one of their futures start reading this shit instead of real books. This is already happening due to social media.
Why expand your vocabulary! Who needs to not only communicate more effectively but potentially even expressing more intangible feelings and experiences while communicating.
Thats actually really good for people who have trouble reading anything above simple language and therefore can make books more accessible. A great way to use AI.
There are books that are too hard for me. I get that and I’m comfortable with it. Anything above short story length from James Joyce or William Faulkner is simply beyond my abilities and not enjoyable to me. It is fine; I don’t read them.
(1) I would obviously never in a million years decide that the answer was for someone or some bot with no literary abilities whatsoever to pre-chew it for me and spit it back up into my mouth like a big mama bird, and for me to choke down the resulting product (2) The Great Gatsby is not on that list my man. It has some deeper themes, allegedly, but that’s not a hard fuckin book. I suspect they just chose a “classic” book at random, unaware that the specific one they chose is a pretty easy and enjoyable read, because they have never read it, because they are to a man a bunch of un literary morons and thieves.
On first thought this seems like its such a weird usecase for AI. However, I don't actually think its completely useless, turning more complex books into children's books while maintaining their lessons and ideas is pretty interesting. And that is something that LLMs can realistically also achieve, not just hype bullshit. Getting grade schoolers to read Nietzsche and them actually understanding something, is a very fun thought to me. I don't think this will have any impact on the reading comprehension of teenagers or above. Those that can't handle the original text, aren't going to read the simplified one. But getting young children acquainted with "grown up" books and their topics and ideas could be a good thing. When its not just about the rabbit in the mushroom house etc. It might even encourage the parent to (re)read the book with the child together, one the original and one the simplified version. Also useful for illiterate persons learning to read, as reading children's books can be uncomfortable for an adult.
That’s what cliff notes are for. Explaining the background and context so you can better understand what you’re reading in, say, Hamlet.
Not just simplifying it and removing potentially relevant material.
For example in the example material:
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They weren’t just younger. They were more vulnerable. That conveys a lot of meaning. Even the word “more” implies a current vulnerability.
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Advice isn’t just something told or conveyed. It’s something given for the benefit of the recipient. I told my child to get milk isn’t the same as giving them advice about drinking milk that’s set out.
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Turning over in my mind ever since -> I still think about is the closest it got to being right. Even then, though, turning over conveys a more meditation/consideration than just thinking about something.
It now reads like a 4th grader ~~diarrhoea~~ diary
People always seem to think I'm kidding when I say I've lost any and all hope for humanity's future. But then I point them to shit like this.
All right all right, I get why this is kind of funny and perhaps it's potentially a bad sign for humanity.
But consider an adult who's learning the English language and is still at a basic level. If they want reading practice, they are often stuck with kids books. This would make practice a lot more interesting.
After getting past the initial horror, I think I'm coming around on this. This is very likely only going to be used by people that wouldn't otherwise read the book.
If this gets more people to actually read books then I'm on board.
How is the first sentence hard? Is the next generation really that dense?
When people judge this, can they please consider those for whom English is not a first language?
If a text is out of your reach currently you can get to it later, as your skill in it improves.
When you do this you're just reading a completely different (worse) book.
Hey Orwell look, someone finally implemented the newspeak you loved so much in 1984 !
Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use
-~~ernest hemingway~~ ChatGPT
"Maximise your reading potential! Avoid difficult words!"
(Why didn't they use "hard" instead of "difficult", I wonder. "Difficult" seems such a long and difficult word for people who are looking to 'maximise their reading potential.')
Fuck AI
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.