231–240 of 334 posts
Promise of AI: All text will be generated Result: No text will be read by anyone except AI
I have negative interest in what LLMs write.
I wonder if we even need to consume content by reading , as opposed to watching or listening, to be neurologically healthy and developed, considering it's something we didn't start doing until a few thousand years ago. Isn't reading kind of a specialization of watching?
From the article: "About midway through my graduate program, I had to sit for a general exam—an hours-long cross-examination conducted by three professors. The exam was based on a reading list, distributed a year in advance, that spanned nearly the whole of English literature, from Beowulf to “Beloved,” and included items like “Joyce, Ulysses,” and “Yeats, Poems.” I read day and night; to persevere without eyestrain,…
> Actually, young people are writing more. Is this a feeling, or something you know from statistics? Many of the teens I know (I'm a teacher) aren't writing blog posts, or even comments on Reddit. They're watching YouTube videos and not interacting back with anything more than a thumbs up. Sure, some are writing on anime subreddits or whatever, but I don't want to make generalizations for what teens are doing across…
I'm not sure what's happening, but I am sure it isn't new. I had to learn the hard way 15 years ago that the average American adult cannot parse a full-page email in standard English. It seemed crazy to me at the time and seems crazy to me now, given that the average adult has completed elementary school, but most people are barely functionally literate at all. I don't expect you to believe me. It's a weird claim. Bu…
You overlooked one crucial fact. > I had to learn the hard way 15 years ago that the average American adult cannot parse a full-page email in standard English. It seemed crazy to me at the time and seems crazy to me now, given that the average adult has completed elementary school, but most people are barely functionally literate at all. They can, they just won't, because they don't give a fucking shit. The moment yo…
One widely discussed study, for instance, judges students on their ability to parse the muddy and semantically tortuous opening of “Bleak House”; this is a little like assessing swimmers on their ability to cross fifty yards of molasses. WTF. Asking university English students to read a book is not asking swimmers to go through molasses.
English students are students, they are in school to learn things they don't know, not demonstrate what they already know. Looking at the numbers it goes from 0% proficient as freshman to 50% as juniors, drops with seniors but seniors often seem to be an outlier in these sorts of studies, probably because they have a great deal on their mind with the major changes their life is about to undergo.
Summarizers start with the default assumption that reading is an obstacle standing between the reader and some kind of reward. Even the idea that knowledge is something that is capable of being transferred is something that has to be assumed at one’s peril. On the other it's those of us who’ve read in the old school style, for fun, in private that are more convinced of the opposite than anyone. If anything getting su…
Click-bait longform is where things went wrong. I read for work, but I also read in my spare time. I love reading about things that I know very little about. Books still generally live up to their synopsis and respect your time, if you choose them well. I mostly stick to books for my leisure reading. Long-form articles have become like opening a box of chocolates in the Forest Gump sense. "You never know what you're…
Some of these articles are definitely more about the author being able to say they write than it is shedding light on anything or providing any kind of insight. It's all just gross to me
I'm not sure what's happening, but I am sure it isn't new. I had to learn the hard way 15 years ago that the average American adult cannot parse a full-page email in standard English. It seemed crazy to me at the time and seems crazy to me now, given that the average adult has completed elementary school, but most people are barely functionally literate at all. I don't expect you to believe me. It's a weird claim. Bu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Actually, young people are writing more. Is this a feeling, or something you know from statistics? Many of the teens I know (I'm a teacher) aren't writing blog posts, or even comments on Reddit. They're watching YouTube videos and not interacting back with anything more than a thumbs up. Sure, some are writing on anime subreddits or whatever, but I don't want to make generalizations for what teens are doing across…
It's hard to find recent data, but the trend has been far more books were published in the 2010s than in the decades before, by like 10 or 100x. There is an even more enormous amount of fan works published. However, data since ChatGPT was invented is probably poisoned by people using it to write even if I could find it.
I have a friend that published a kids book over the course of a weekend, it's for sale on Amazon. It's sold hardly any copies but it's been published
I wonder if we even need to consume content by reading , as opposed to watching or listening, to be neurologically healthy and developed, considering it's something we didn't start doing until a few thousand years ago. Isn't reading kind of a specialization of watching?
While theoretically possible with non-linear media like videos and audio playback, the fluidity of reading is far superior. Thus, passive consumption leads to many fragments of ideas remaining atomized and not sticking. In contrast, reading allows one to efficiently stitch numerous ideas together.
The point of reading is not to become convinced or apprehend a single summarizable point. Rather, it is to fill one's memory banks with thoughts, experiences and ideas that can be combined with other ones and synthesize new information.
Contrast wandering though a botanical garden, reading labels and looking at plants on the one hand. On the other hand, picture a slow-moving bus that rolls continuously through the garden. The bus may pause from time to time, but mostly it remains on the path, letting you watch things go by from a distance. Both means of travel "get you through" the garden, but the self-pacing version allows a personal connection to the information.
So it would be convenient for a farmer to have his animals illiterate, yet capable of listening passively to commands over loudspeakers. And to the farmer, it would be inconvenient for these animals to learn to read and explore material on their own which would eventually lead them to an awareness that they don't want to be fenced in, farmed, and eaten. So you can see why some questionable leaders are comfortable with illiteracy as a means of control. While others seek to empower humanity through encouraging reading.
I'm not sure what's happening, but I am sure it isn't new. I had to learn the hard way 15 years ago that the average American adult cannot parse a full-page email in standard English. It seemed crazy to me at the time and seems crazy to me now, given that the average adult has completed elementary school, but most people are barely functionally literate at all. I don't expect you to believe me. It's a weird claim. Bu…
> walk into any average grocery store and hand someone a page out of a book and ask them to read it out loud to you. Many people are so aware they can't that they will refuse to try. Of the ones that do, you will struggle to find one who can read the text with anything like the fluidity or inflection they would use to speak the same words Of course. I would likely find this situation very unsettling, if not stressful…