Excellent Reads

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Are you tired of clickbait and the current state of journalism? This community is meant to remind you that excellent journalism still happens. While not sticking to a specific topic, the focus will be on high-quality articles and discussion around their topics.

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The End of Reading Is Here (www.theatlantic.com)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by ooli3@sopuli.xyz to c/longreads@sh.itjust.works

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[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 15 points 4 days ago (3 children)

… told me she’d spoken with a student who was struggling to read a book written in Old English. The culprit: Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange. (The student used ChatGPT to “translate” the book into easier language.)

😮

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That person is fucken illiterate. Seriously I've read books from the 1800s with perfect clarity and I e brute forced myself through a solid bit of an Old English copy of Beowulf, don't particularly remember anything from that assignment but I do know my highschool English teacher gave me an A and apparently we weren't supposed to get through the poem.

[–] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Hwæt?

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

Yeah no I'm with you, pretty sure I wrote this right after waking up. Like walked into a doorway and just kinda stood there levels of not awake yet. I do agree with myself that if someone can't read 1960s English then they're probably a tad bit illiterate or stupid, not accounting for boring prose, over use of slang, or outdated shit driving you insane.

[–] humble_boatsman@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 days ago

This made me throw up.

[–] FavouriteShapes@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Unironically a kind of smart use of AI - i can see some works from 1912 or earlier becoming too convoluted and wordy for people to understand in the future. Obviously it's a very ironic one to try and translate because the psuedo-language is an intentional part of the book, and all readers need to actually push themselves, but yeah.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago

Here in 60 years we'll have supreme court justices who had to ask Claude to summarize the constitution because "In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law" is too convoluted and wordy

[–] ferrule@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

But those works were always excessively wordy. No one back then talked like that. Writing was seen as an art. Even letters back then were far more poetic than daily spoken word.

The problem is that we have now made it acceptable to it is too difficult.

[–] DeltaWingDragon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Did you miss a word?

made it acceptable to it is too difficult

[–] ferrule@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 hours ago

Oops. fixed it.

I meant to say "made it acceptable to say it is too difficult."