But that’s not the great Gatsby that’s the ok Gatsby
Reduce teen literacy levels with this one easy step!!! Teachers hate it!!!
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.
Turn HARD books into EASY books by learning what words mean!
That was a “hard book”? I fear for future of humanity.
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
Why expand your vocabulary! Who needs to not only communicate more effectively but potentially even expressing more intangible feelings and experiences while communicating.
How is the first sentence hard? Is the next generation really that dense?
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.
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
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
You improve reading comprehension (like any skill) by challenging yourself. The AI text would only be a challenge for a brand new English learner.
You can ask the AI for any reading level you want and it will do it
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.
Yes, people reading books would be terrible
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.
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”?
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
Hey Orwell look, someone finally implemented the newspeak you loved so much in 1984 !
why waste say lot word when few word do trick
people will get even dumber
Yeah, it’s reading books that makes people dumb
reading dumbed down versions of books that would actually expand your linguistic horizon otherwise will
Only if you understand most of it
You have no appreciation for people learning languages and how hard it is
Having on-hand knowledge of a lot of dated, obscure, or specialized language does not, in fact, make you smarter
Sincerily, someone who knows a lot of obscure, dated, and specialized language ((i am a linguist))
i’m more worried about people dumbing down non-dated, modern language, out of pure laziness
People have been complaining about laziness in language and “dumbing down” language since language has existed. It’s nothing new and it’s not happening at a different rate than before. The perceived degredation of language is not, and has never been, a real thing. It’s natural and unstoppable language change. It’s the reason you can’t understand Old English, and why Hindi, German, Spanish, and Russian are different languages from English now.
That being said, things like this theoretically could help to increase literacy rates significantly in populations with low literacy (in a similar way Simplified Chinese script along with Chinese education reforms drastically improved China’s literacy rates) – and most of the US has surprisingly low literacy (about 54% of adults have low English literacy and 21% are illiterate) – or for people who aren’t proficient enough readers to gain anything from reading something of such a high level. Reading should be accessible to as many people as possible, not gatekeeped. It would be far better as some sort of “annotation creator” though probably, if your goal is more literacy.
Of course, you shouldn’t rely on something like this by any means. But it’s not bad for a lot of purposes, we shouldn’t beat uneducated people while they’re down. And either way your literacy really doesn’t affect your “stupidity”, although a lot of resources with knowledge you might want will require a certain level of literacy.
Simplified Chinese didn’t do anything. Taiwan has a higher literacy rate than mainland China while using traditional characters
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate
Considering China’s literacy rate grew from 20 percent in 1956 to 65 percent in 1982 (and now 97% in 2020 which is insane for such a highly rural country – 43% of the population, to give an idea) due to them focusing on Simplified Chinese, you’re just wrong in stating it “didn’t do anything”. In fact, Mao got the idea from seeing Japan’s success in improving literacy by simplifying Kanji into Shinjitai, so you’re wrong twice…
Of course, it went hand-and-hand with the government’s education reforms, it doesn’t deserve all the credit. But it helped a LOT. It can be argued that it’s no longer a factor because of the access to education Chinese have now, and I’d agree, but it helped when literacy was in need of improvement.
Obviously though, different characters is a small change compared to completely rewriting the sentences to simplify it, like this does here.
i see your point, didn’t think about the accessibility aspect
I don’t know if it makes you smarter, but I’d gamble you’re more knowledgeable.
None of this matters though because the people who would read a dumbed down version of a book would have probably used a different shortcut if this weren’t possible.
I love how someone who knows what they’re talking about gets downvoted here. Don’t you know you’re just wrong and should keep your facts to yourself?! 🤦♂️
Linguists aren’t behavioral psychologists or K-12 educators. Being challenged by unfamiliar language is an incredibly important experience in developing reading comprehension. It’s not that a bigger vocabulary makes you smarter, it’s that the process of understanding more complex language helps you both understand and formulate more complex ideas.
If you can’t understand something, you don’t get challenged, you just skip it. You need to be getting 98%-99% of the text to gain something from reading it
Now Republicans can read!
I like this. It’s a matter of accessibility for many who are maybe not physically but mentally disabled, they absolutely lack access to lots of books and translating them into Simple English will open up new books and experiences for them.
Yes, most of us love the wordplay and artistry of books that are hard to read. It’s a really satisfying feature of language that it can move around so freely and artistically. But that also means that some people are basically gatekept by language from the stories this language tells. These translations don’t take away out ability to read the wordy, artsy original, they just enable other people to read the same story in a language better suited for them.
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.
