That was the sanitisation of Roald Dahl's books, which already happened and was likely celebrated on Lemmy.
Could you maybe give some links for the ones who didn't get what you're writing about, like I did?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/books/roald-dahl-books-changes.html
Yeah, those edits were idiotic, all right, thanks for sharing
But I was more keen to see who celebrated those. Although, I am sure such people probably exist not only in the Dahl Estate
It was possibly on Reddit, but you can imagine the rhetoric. I actually do think it was on Lemmy. I believe I said that the Oompa-Loompas being literal African Pygmies was a bit much, and could remember feeling that way even as a young child. I think even Mr Dahl himself might have come to the same conclusion in later life.
This is okay for people to change their views, I think it's better to add author's or editor's commentary in such a case, not censor the shit out of the book
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.
Yep. As much as I know, those of us with the know how aren't actually doing these shitty things, it's always someone else who takes a sledgehammer to a screw.
I dunno - if A.I. is suggesting tech bros launch themselves into the sun, I could maybe get behind it.
But if tech bros launched themselves into the sun we would loose.... Uhhhh... Genuinely I can't think of anything they contribute to society
I guess I closed the tab, so I forget exactly, but something to the effect of “Simplify the following text for a 5 year old” then pasted the parent text inside double quotes.
Well, Magibook is here for you:
What if every book was written like "50 Shades of Gray"? Or if every steakhouse only served McDonald's hamburger patties because steak is too complicated for some folks?
Thanks, will have a wank in a McD since that's what you suggest
(I like your dumbed down version)
If while reading that sentence you're missing the tongue placed firmly in a cheek maybe consider...
The amount of adults for whom the internet is just looking to an endless stream of funny pictures is astonishingly high.
This is about finding "solutions" for stupid people that can then be used to extract information and wealth from them. That's a capitalist problem. Tech bros are merely one flavor of snake oil salesman.
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Or alternatively get walled off in their own part of the internet where they can only harm themselves.
It’s not the tech bros. It’s clients asking for this shit. Tech can do anything and as it progresses it will continue to be able to do anything .
It’s the Clients misusing $$ has and always been the real devil here.
I always assumed that tech bros were the client, not the developer. They're the frat bros of the tech world. They don't know or care what a technology does. They're just going to slap it into anything and everything and hype it up like crazy to make that tech bubble money before it inevitably bursts.
hipster engineering -
"Man I'm just saying, committing the Laplace tables to memory and working with a slide rule just hits different."
Calculators are no replacement for smarts. They just take away the parts that don't need actual thinking.
Something like this to produce graded readers is a great idea, but I don't see anything in the ad itself that indicates it's for language learners. If this is for a general audience for native speakers, then it's enabling people to avoid learning to read (and ultimately use) more complex and nuanced language, in favor of infantilizing consumers and spoon feeding them everything.
The only use case I could see this being a positive for when aimed at native speakers would be something like adult literacy programs, or maybe homeschooling for kids with difficulties learning to read who don't have the trained, professional support that one would hope they might have in a more typical school setting. For adults who struggle with illiteracy, I could see this being quite beneficial, though. It's something that people will often be embarrassed about to begin with, and somebody who's feeling self-conscious about this could be demotivated by only being able to read books aimed at children. Even if they say "Screw it, I need to do this," it can be difficult to maintain motivation and interest when the only content you can find at your reading level is written for little kids. If they could have adult materials adapted to a level that's challenging but manageable for them, I could certainly see that being a good thing.
It does if that “evolution” consists of removing large or complex words simply because they’re “too hard”
They aren't removed because they're too hard, they're removed because they're inconvenient. They are removed when there is a more succinct and/or better understood alternative, for example "evolution" doesn't have a good alternative to replace it. Memorizing relatively obscure words isn't intellectual, and as simple building blocks as possible can often better communicate more complex ideas. There's a reason C is better liked than C++
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.
"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"
Old enough to remember when you'd just get the Cliff's Notes or read the Great Illustrated Classics version.
But now you can have a computer give you an even shallower and less coherent version of the book.
"The highs were high and the lows were low. Specifically for the two cities and the people in them that this novel is about."
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.
I am with you. Again though as I mentioned the CliffsNotes tend to he very poor in quality, so I feel this tool can act as a supplement to aid in the user’s education if free or low cost tools are all they can afford. :)
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
I see what you mean, but sometimes you want a particular story, not just something on your level.
Yeah, as fun as it sounds to jump on the bandwagon and shit on this app, I don't hate it. Especially if you actually go to the appstore page and look at the intended audience. Saying "lol git gud n read" is being pretty ableist to like, at least half the groups on that list.
Yeah, the amount of ableism (and classism, racism) in the post and comments is fucking gross.
AI is a tool.
Are capitalists using it for evil? Sure.
Is this specifically an evil use?
Only if your goal is to exclude people who you see as lesser than yourself from accessing information you have the privilege to freely access.
Personally having the knowledge and ability to read books in general, but in what is often outdated (or not even someone's first) language, unaided, doesn't mean everyone does (or that everyone ever will be, even in whatever "perfect" world they like to imagine where people with different needs don't exist), and making literature more accessible will only ever be a positive thing (again, unless someone's goal is to exclude people they see as lesser than them, which evidently many do, in which case, rallying against accessibility aids is right on brand).
People need to get off their high horses and start aiming their anger where it belongs (how about the billionaire owned governments that ensure the population is poorly educated to make us all, yourselves included as is clearly evident here, easier to manipulate, or that exclude those of us with different needs and learning styles and classifies us as "burdens", or the billionaires making billions more from commodifying freely available information), not join hands with oppressors and stomp anyone they consider bellow them.
This is a textbook strawman argument. The foundational premise of this argument is that the only reason someone could have for opposing a tool like this is because of a desire to exclude others from accessing specific works that they believe hold a specific degree of cultural capital, and, as such, anyone who makes an argument against this technology must, therefore, automatically hold this position.
Which is not the case. One argument against this technology is that it at best mangles and at worst destroys the underlying meaning and significance of a work of literature. Your argument seems to consider the form of language of a work of literature as window dressing to it - something with far less meaning or significance than its summarizable content. But for many works of literature, it's not. Some things are written to be difficult. Some things are written to be accessible purely to adults with a complex grasp of the language. Some thing are meant to challenge a reader. That's why every year in school you're assigned slightly harder books - because learning is a process of continually being challenged. And this is a tool that actively seeks to negate that. If you're learning English and you want to read a famously difficult English novel, why reduce its complexity to the point where you're not even reading the actual novel instead of just reading a version translated into your native language? Or get two copies, one in English and one in your native language, side by side and compare the language in each? A good translation by a skilled translator can preserve most, if not all, of the artistic value of the original, as opposed to this, where a huge chunk of the underlying artistic value of the work itself has been drained from it like blood from a slaughtered animal.
As such, the issue is not "wanting to keep the work out of the hands of ESL learners or children." It's about not wanting the underlying work diminished.
I would also argue that this is a tool ripe for exploitation in the worst ways possible, as "simplification" is a stone's throw from censorship. Some group doesn't like the inclusion of LGBT characters in a famous book? Use this AI tool to programmatically erase any mention of them. Some group doesn't like that a book is critical of capitalism? Suddenly, large parts read like a parable straight from the mouth of Supply-Side Jesus. I know, let's cut out all mention of race in Huckleberry Finn. Now it's just a fun story about a kid and his..."friend"...traveling down the Mississippi! And if you were reading a novel in this way for the first time, you probably wouldn't have any idea that this wasn't what the author themselves had written and that you were reading a warped, ideologically twisted homunculus of the original.
Well put. If anything, an aspiring English learner using this tool will likely feel inspired by these stories to the point that they return to them and read them normally later on :)
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?
The way the ad is presented makes it look like there's something wrong with the original (❌) and that the mangled version is better (✅), as if it was actually improved.
The tool removed all the subtext from the original by using this very neutral, matter-of-fact language. There is actual information lost there, not just rigmarole. And that's the example they chose to put into the ad.
LLMs will also make shit up or completely misinterpret what's being written, I wouldn't trust it to get through an entire book without grossly misleading the reader or flipping out. They can't parse that much text at once right now so all interpretation of a chunk of text will have only a very broad, short and possibly wrong/irrelevant summary of what came before for context.
I don't even want to know what this would do to something like a Pratchett novel or a textbook.
As far as accessibility tools using machine learning go, wouldn't a text-to-speech reader app be better for dyslexics anyway?
I do not disagree with you. But i think it is up to the individual how they consume their media. And I agree with the pitfalls of LLMs, I just questioned all the super negative views of this that where upvoted when I entered this thread.
And when it comes to audio books and ai voice synthesis, they might be good tools, but does not necessarily achieve simplify the language. And also, i wish I was a better reader, not a better listener.
All fair points, my issue is mostly with how this is advertised and that I would not want to learn anything from an inherently untrustworthy LLM. Would have liked to use something with quick access to both human-made explanations and a built-in dictionary/thesaurus when I was learning English myself.
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.
I just highlighted that there are some people out there that this product might give value. If someone wants to read a paraphrased simplified book, I think that should be fine. :)
If they lose out on nuances it's on them, but maybe it sparks an interest in reading in general if the first tästeps are easier.
My real concern is that AI in its current form is not great at context and continuity. I see it similarly as translating between languages: Google can do a decent job of directly translating a phrase, even adjusting grammar a bit, but it can't tell when it needs to explain or replace an idiom, or which details it definitely needs for symbolism and which can be safely disregarded, or detect when a word is being used in an archaic or unusual way.
So I think this would be a great project for a human with a keen understanding of literature to undertake, but honestly I think an AI paraphrasing without a large amount of editing would would give you a fairly bland and possibly confusing read.
I agree that current ai is not the saving grace some make it out to be. But as a proof of concept, there is nothing wrong with the product presented in the post.
I was all aboard the hate train, because it seems like defacing a work of art. Your points are valid and now I'm thinking it isn't bad after all. This can make those stories more accessible, and it's not like the original was destroyed. If you want to read the original just get it instead of this.
look at the community this was posted in. opinions/votes will be coming in hot and preloaded. If this was 'tech' or something on mander.xyz, sure. but "fuck ai" might be a wee bit slanted.
it is a little weird though for them to post something actually good about AI and then get angry it's doing good. I mean, even Flying Squid is on the hate-train today. Everyone is hating because either they're selfish (like FS) or narrow-minded / prejudiced. It's a shame.
"Fuck X" communities are the worst with toxic irrationally. BRB, gonna go start "fuck 'fuck X' communities".
Had to scroll down so far to find ESL. This is a truly excellent tool for a language learner if working as intended. If it were available to create graded reading materials in many different target languages it would be worth its weight in gold.
The context of the next passage is laughably applicable but would it be stripped?
Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.
Is your username referring to a "BiPAP" and a "Pappy" (like a grandpa)? So like, "I am BiPappy"?
Or maybe even a bisexual grandpa?
Neither, "lambi" is a brand of toilet paper, and "papp" is short for "paper" in my language
Ohh, that's an "L" and not an "I". I haven't thought about lambi toilet paper in a really long time
I thought PapP was a play on the word "Pappy". I also have a medical background, so BiPAP is a common term for me. I appreciate the breakdown though
In my head though, I'll probably still be seeing your user name along the lines of "I Am Biphasic Positive Airway Pressure Daddy". It's got a certain 'ring' to it lol
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!
I saw a great comment the other day that someone didn't believe in human souls until they saw what AI "art". The difference between human art and AI garbage made them conclude there was a distinctly human touch necessary.
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There is still a wide gap between human consciousness and what they are calling AI. He is comparing a self-aware, thinking being to a program that picks the next thing based on what it has seen a lot of. I am not arguing for human souls, just that he is comparing apples and moon dust.
Our ability to feel and connect with the feelings of others isn't proof of the soul, but to me that ability is as important as any metaphysical endowment
If you take the art out of artistic all you're left with is a stick. But it's missing the letter "k," so it's a broken stick.
This omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent dude created the universe, the world, the biosphere the angels and humans and then kept punishing them for not living up to his expectations, so he sent a few prophets to set some ground rules, but that did not work...so he impregnated a virgin and told her son, a real stand up guy, to sacrifice himself in order to clean everyone's sins to set a shocking example of the extreme love he expects for the future. The end.
PS: his disciples also sent letters about theology to each other, about practical matters and the end of the world :o)
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.
Is it done by a human who understands what's happening?
Communicating using plain language is a great way to make information more accessible . Having an AI butcher all the meaning in works where every word was carefully chosen as part of the core message is different. Fiction is more than a sequence of events. The words matter.
See at some point this discussion starts to feel kind of up itself. @roscoe@roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com casually created a dividing line between "books that are for entertainment" and "real literature" but balked at marking the location of that line. "Don't be obtuse."
I genuinely don't think that line exists. Shakespeare was the Netflix Original of his day, and his day was some 400 years ago. A lot of "real literature" is labeled as such basically on the authority of generations of pretentious twats, at least a few of whom basically think "old = good and new = bad."
We translate works from one language to another all the time, you think the precise nuances always make it through that process? We also adapt novels to film or television as a matter of routine. The original post uses the example of The Great Gatsby, which has at least one film adaptation. Is that a perfect 1 to 1 transfer of the author's intent? Then you have retell
Beyond this, if I understand correctly, this could be used interactively. Say you're using this on an e-reader, you could have the original text in the book, and then have a "what the fuck does that mean" button you can push to get an AI powered simplification if a sentence is too complicated for you or you don't understand a particular idiom or something. I bet there's someone out there who reads English as a second language generally well enough for The Great Gatsby, but doesn't get the colloquialism "turning it over in my mind." Hell, I'm a native English speaker and I could use something like that for a lot of works over 100 years old that use obsolete language I'm not familiar with.
Or...there's this book called Congressional Anecdotes by Paul Boller, who writes in a style that is trying to be more clever than he is. Instead of saying something like "Senator Grug from Montana called Senator Flub from Wyoming an idiot, and that made Senator Flub angry" he instead writes "The esteemed member from the Gold and Silver state referred to his colleague Flub as a man of dubious intelligence. This didn't sit well with the senator from Wyoming in the slightest measure." I got just far enough into that book before giving up on it to recognize when an author on Cracked.com basically plagiarized it for an article. I mentioned it in the comments and the author messaged me like "Hahaha shutthefuckup" That book needs an AI simplification like I need a good night sleep.
The original post uses the example of The Great Gatsby, which has at least one film adaptation. Is that a perfect 1 to 1 transfer of the author's intent?
No, and like almost every movie made from a classic, the one I saw is complete and utter dogshit.
A good translation is done by skilled translators who understand how to keep the substance of the work.
The words are the story telling. The "translated" version in the OP is a completely different story with completely different meaning than the original. The actual sequence of events in a lot of "literature" is not that compelling. The way it's told is why it's compelling.
I'm not balking at communicating what I think the line is, either by trying to define it or by listing some things on one side and some on the other, because it's hard, although it is. I'm not doing it for two main reasons, no one else should give a damn what my line is and I wouldn't want to list a book that I thought was shallow fun when someone else could have related to it in a profound way. I don't want to shit on someone else's experiences.
I think your being dishonest and pretentious when you say the line doesn't exist. Plenty of books I've read lately, and enjoyed enough I'm looking forward to the next things from those authors, are not in the same league as things I would consider art. This is true for all forms of art/media. Jerry Springer is not art like (insert what you think is the best expression of art on the small screen here). Battlefield Earth is not art like (insert whatever you think fits here). Are you seriously going to try and pull some smug insufferable "everything is art" bullshit here?
I never said there is anything wrong with a good translation even though it obviously can't be perfect and something is almost certainly lost. My French is never going to be good enough to read Camus, so I have to settle for a translation.
But that's not how this started. Before you started your "the line doesn't exist", "Shakespeare is overrated", "aren't I just so smart" auto-fellatio session, you defended butchering art with ai in the name of allowing ESL students to read it.
No one who wants anything more than an entertaining read should use this, ESL or otherwise. If you're going to read something with the hope that it's more than just entertainment, you should try to avoid any further opinions or analysis on it, avoid TV or movie adaptions, not read the Cliff's notes, and not use this fucking app. If you're going to use the app, use it for something you don't expect to get anything more than a bit of fun out of. And if you think you'll never have the necessary level of mastery, or just don't want to wait, find a good translation.
Using this app on anything you would consider art is indefensible. I have a hard time believing this is anything more than you being bored and feeling contrary.
Are you seriously going to try and pull some smug insufferable “everything is art” bullshit here?
No, I'm more saying that "art" has no useful or stable definition especially as you are trying to use the word, to contrast "just entertainment" from "real art." I don't believe a line can be meaningfully drawn between those because lots of creative works have found themselves on both sides of that line depending on when they are in time.
Using Shakespeare as an example, he and his actors thought they were making plays that would be enjoyed by the few hundred or maybe few thousand people who would show up to the Globe theatre during the few weeks they were performing a particular play, and then never again. They weren't setting out to make immortal classics for the ages and none of them lived to see that take place. When did Shakespeare's plays become "real art?"
I don't think JRR Tolkien intended people to take The Hobbit as seriously as they do today.
George Lucas didn't think he was making a century-defining masterpiece on the set of Star Wars.
There is nothing preventing a future where massively anachronistic misinterpretations of the shooting scripts for eight episodes of Two And A Half Men become required reading for all teenagers 200 years from now as time transcending, culture defining classics.
On the other hand, what brilliant works are forgotten because they failed to find an audience in their time, or they became a meme and burned out?
The only honest criteria you could present to me for what makes "real art" different from "just entertainment" is the court of public opinion, which is subject to change over time. I live in a world where huge budget movies are based on stories and characters that originated in pulp magazines and penny dreadfuls.
I'm not interested in trying to draw a line between "this is just entertainment, feel free to view this in whatever abridged format you like" and "This is real art, so I demand you undergo whatever effort is necessary to experience it in what I consider to be the original and correct format, I don't care what your priorities are or how much time and effort you can budget to this project." I don't see a functional difference between an individual reading a version of a classic book that has been abridged by AI and watching the relevant episode of Wishbone. There's someone alive today who only knows The Tempest or Cyrano De Bergerac as the version with a Jack Russell terrier in it. Who are you to say "No that's not good enough"?
As long as the original works continue to be available I have no problem with any method of abridging them, and I don't believe any work is above consuming in abridged format for whatever reason especially on accessibility grounds.
Yeah yeah
How about for an encore you tell us how The Godfather is overrated and Sharknado 3 is actually a good film.
You know what both of those films are? Exactly what their creators set out to make.
Simplified language for learners is great. But I would suggest to learners that they use this on books that are for entertainment and save real literature for after they have the proficiency to enjoy it as it was written.
Sure, they could always reread it unaltered later, but you only get to read something for the first time once.
Ultimately, every individual reader I suppose. But don't be obtuse, when you pick up a book I think you know if it's just a fun read or if you're expecting it to be something more. Either due to a particular person's opinion, or the opinion of society in general.
If someone is reading something they would like to appreciate as art, as opposed to entertainment, I don't think it's out of bounds to suggest they might enjoy it more if they waited until they mastered the language enough to appreciate the prose.
I'm not sure if I said something to offend you or if you just woke up this morning and decided to spend the day being a pedantic twat, but I'll pretend you're being genuine.
I thought being entertained by appreciating art would have gone without saying. But if you're such a sad sack you can't be entertained by art...well, I guess that goes a long way toward explaining your attitude.
I'm not upset, I'm just genuinely confused that you implied that "real literature" and "for entertainment" are separate categories. I always thought of these books as being intended for entertainment, just in an artsier/more intellectual way than Marvel movies and bideo bames. Your comment made me think you thought of them as something for intellectual enrichment rather than enjoyment.
I'm also confused why you interpreted my comment in such a hostile way, but that's another conversation probably not worth turning into an argument.
EDIT: Oh, did you think I was saying they're not for entertainment?
Oops, sorry, I thought I was replying to someone else.
I apologize for coming in so hot. I really do think entertainment and art appreciation ideally go together and didn't need to be explicitly said. I'm not in the habit of choosing to do anything I don't think I could enjoy. Forcing something for intellectual enrichment has it's place for schoolchildren, or if you feel the need for it as an adult, but these days I don't have the bandwidth. Maybe in retirement when there is more time.
Why expand your vocabulary! Who needs to not only communicate more effectively but potentially even expressing more intangible feelings and experiences while communicating.
"Fuck the British, I'm going to prove they're not even the masters of their own language, much less five others."
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.
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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.
That aspect is my concern. A 2020 Gallup study suggested that over half of United States residents lacked English proficiency. While I suppose a tool like this might encourage some to read who might not otherwise, I worry students will use it as a crutch, not pushing themselves to develop their vocabularies and comprehension skills.
Anecdotally, I work in a field that typically requires an advanced education. The proportion of my coworkers that consistently demonstrates basic reading comprehension issues likewise concerns me.
Edit: that this post was three down from this one gave me a good laugh: https://lemmy.world/post/17068182
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If they read more simple material, they would still improve their reading comprehension. Maybe even more efficiently, if it's still challenging but not overwhelming
Reading things written in old English probably isn't going to improve your literacy, because it's not really the same language. If anything you're going to make it worse when people try using older spellings, grammar conventions, or words that are no longer used. If you actually want to understand and use modern English, maybe start with modern English. If you really wanted to help people read and write, reform spellings and grammar to be more easily understood or pull a Korea and make a whole new much simpler writing system.
Are you talking about some other book? Because the text in the image is extremely normal modern English.
I am more talking about all those people forcing kids to read shakespeare some of which are in this comment section. I've seen people here advocating reading old texts to improve English comprehension.
Isn't this already a thing? Like re-writing older vernacular English works in modern English?
But also, Gatsby is hardly old English. The sentence pre "simplifying" is just longer. There's still some people who would enjoy or benefit from that, I suppose. But AI is going to absolutely mangle the tone and the essence of the book in doing so. It's not just a matter of reducing word count, or at that point your book will increasingly become a summary of itself.
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It's a higher grade reading level. It's not just longer, but also harder to understand for teenagers who don't have the same vocabulary as adults
Yeah no I can see how that could be the case. In the example though, I'm not sure what vocabulary is from a higher grade reading level. The word "vulnerable"?
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Turning over in my head is an expression that's also part of vocabulary, there's no physical turning, it's a form of speech
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Put your faith in AI - It'll give ya shoes.
Disclaimer: Shoes may both be the same foot, have no sole, and/or no opening for a foot.
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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.
The older I get, the less I am interested in a book that will challenge me through being difficult. I'd rather just be entertained or informed. Or hopefully both at the same time.
There's a point where you can't separate reading comprehension from transmission of thought.
but that’s not a hard fuckin book
For you.
JFC, is it really that hard for some people to see outside of themselves? 🤦♀️
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Yeah maybe that's fair
My point is largely based on that I think the LLM is going to do an incredibly poor job of this. Something like the Pearson readers, I think are fine, because they're accomplishing this important thing while (a) preserving the literary merit (b) IDK, something about how this is marketed makes me think it will be aimed at people who should be developing their reading skills but want easier-than-adult-English level for whatever reason, not at places where it actually makes sense and is perfectly reasonable to have an easy-fied version.
My point was that Gatsby is perfectly readable for an adult reading level. If someone's not at that level with English then fine. Can we compromise on the importance of preserving the important elements of the book, if we're going to make a simplified version of it, instead of just having an LLM make a bad job of it and then pass off the result as something that's going to do something for anybody if they read it?