The Problem With AI Rewriting Books

[@JerryChen06]

7:39 "To do that on our level, an AI would have to think like us, introspect like us, and truly *be* like us. At that point, it wouldn't even be a machine in any way that matters. It would be human too." This is such a profound quote that I think really highlights the difference between us and AI, and also adds a cool philosophical take on what it means to be human. It really eases the stress that "AI is going to take over every job" since the truth of the matter is that, until AI becomes in every sense of the word "human", there will be tasks that AI won't be able to do at our level, just as this video clearly demonstrates

[@Tyneras]

It is a big question for futurists and scifi writers. There are many tasks that humans do that don't require human level intelligence, just look at robots vacuuming floors. But at a certain point, when does the AI require so many human level abilities that you have created a person, and effectively enslaved them? Are they entitled to damages, or back wages with interest? With all the dangers of a truly alien digital intelligence, is there any point in making a human level AI at all?

[@ninjakiwigames5418]

Rational Animations did a video on this similar topic. It's called The Hidden Complexity of Wishes

[@ChocolatexCherries3]

6:33 it's also just ableism to say that we need to give disabled people "dumber" versions of media because they "wont ever" be able to get it on the "level we can." if a disabled person is reading a book, odds are we should trust their interpretation of their own abilities to be able to understand said book.

[@mimosa5174]

It reminds me of the “simplified English” books I had to read for school, growing up. A popular text was adapted for younger readers learning English as a second language. It serves a purpose but I don’t see how it would encourage further reading or make users passionate/connect with any specific book. The uniqueness of the work is completely missing and usually the story is not the reason why a book is regarded as a masterpiece. I’m so fed up with people clamouring for AI’s democratising “thing”.

[@-starrysunrise-2908]

Reminds me of my child self doing everything in my power to keep my printed-template book reports within the little box despite being repeatedly told to just continue it on the back of the page

[@ixywas]

thank you for making this video. its has given me alot of context from your pov

[@I_Love_Learning]

I want to see how the heck it handles something like "Gee each owe tea eye smells fish"

[@tonytins]

Corporate AI is the absolute worse with how positive it always is.

[@thatoneguyyouforgotthenameof]

Certainly! It seems like you're frustrated with how corporate AI tends to always be overly positive. It's understandable to find that tone annoying or insincere, especially when you're seeking more balanced or nuanced responses. … chatgpt clearly wasn’t very self aware here.

[@tonytins]

@@thatoneguyyouforgotthenameof Really ruins some discussions of trying to simply just bouncing ideas for fictions because it keeps wanting to come up with some kind of forced happy ending that tries to spoon-feed you a cliché lesson.

[@hlopplopp7066]

There is no way they could make a "beginner" version of Ulysses. Think of how many allusions it would remove! Agenbite of inwit.

[@OVXX666]

it could maybe make sense for people that are trying to learn english etc if it broke down words that are rarer and at a higher language level instead of completely rewriting whole sentences

[@zoe_bee]

🙏

[@PosiWritesStories]

Love your videos, really awesome to see you here!

[@threadsofsaffron]

there's a video by artist scott Christian Sava where he discusses what "soul" looks like in art. He describes it as stylistic deviations from realism for aesthetic purposes. I think something similar could be applied to writing, yes you could reduce prose to its most basic forms with AI and spit out a bland approximation of the original meaning, but you take out all the stylistic flair and subtleties imbued there by the author. yes you may still vaguely understand what was meant in the narrative and the author, but you lose the story.

[@jerry7866]

I would argue there's inherently a problem with AI "writing" in general.

[@zhemedick]

Probably would be better if one could select a part of the text they didn't fully understand and the ai would give them a simpler version of it instead of doing that with the whole book at once. It would also be better if it had an integrated dictionary that would show the meaning of a complex word one may not be familiar with, since sometimes that's the whole thing needed to fully grasp the meaning of a sentence plus it helps with learning new vocabulary. The idea itself is not bad but it could definitely use some improvement.

[@emmao6578]

luckily the ability to look up words is already integrated into every ebook reader that I'm aware of so people already have a way better option than this app if vocabulary is the main thing preventing them reading certain books

[@thebruceborn]

will be good for people who suck at reading. opens them up to new possibilities.

[@PosiWritesStories]

There are better ways to do that. I elaborate more near the end of the video.

[@jerry7866]

No just no. If you suck at writing and then ask an AI to write for you that still makes you a bad writer I would argue that makes you a worse "writer".

[@Venejan]

I imagine one could use this app to modify texts in other ways, e.g. removing perceived racism and sexism etc. at the touch of a button, and perhaps changing the genders and races of characters and even adding a "choose your own adventure" feature. The sky's the limit, although I'm glad they're still constrained by copyright.

[@Lu-li1ei]

Fandom spaces already do that, and more. I don't believe the source material has to be sacred and untouchable, but I truly don't see the benefit of a half-ass ai rewrite when ao3, twitter, tumblr and discord each contain one well writen one. Not to mention that legally, a fanwork doesn't have the issues ai does

[@-starrysunrise-2908]

Removing percieved racism and sexism could destroy the story's conflict The ai wouldn't be able to tell if the bigotry is glorified or not

[@Tail_sez]

@@-starrysunrise-2908 Precisely, this is why social media platforms that almost solely rely on bots for moderation are rarely seen as safe places for marginalized groups. An ai lacks the perception into human culture people do.

[@user-ly1ko6be9t]

@@Tail_sezopposite. you can get muted for essentially anything on ai-moderated sites

[@user-ly1ko6be9t]

Why? For DEI?

[@ramonek9109]

I still see some value for language learners. Just to find comprehensible input when you are a beginner. Not as a replacement for reading the actual book. Graded readers are nothing new.

[@Tail_sez]

As a language learner, I was thinking this myself. Personally I distrust machine translation of any kind when used as a learning reference, and would rather attempt to access books that were originally written at my reading level. I can see how others would find this tool useful. However, my main concern is that some people, with their native language, may use this as a replacement for reading the originals. Which, their decision, I suppose, but it would be sad to see an influx of people walking away from classic books judging them unfairly, thinking they were duller than they really were, because of self-inflicted butcherization of the prose.

[@Nick-rs5if]

AI is among the largest technological leaps in human history. It is an extremely useful piece of technology for broad range of topics. This just isn't one of them! 😭