Reading stuff isn't that hard or unwelcome?

[Echobelly]

Obviously, caveat for people with specific difficulties like dyslexia etc, but in a world where AI keeps popping up to tell us it can save us reading a whole email or article... is reading a short form text really that hard or time consuming? I don't think I've ever come across an email so long that it merited summarising and where I might as well just read it, and actually reply myself.

And longform text like books is ... meant to be read in full? Reading a summary of a book is pointless and boring and won't stick in your mind. I mean, at the end of the day, I get that reading books is just not everyone's cup on tea, my oldest isn't really a reader though they're still a high achiever at school, it's just not their thing. I think it's the short-form thing that puzzles me a bit.

Are younger people finding it hard to read text? Is it because they have no attention span, or just they are growing up with a message that reading anything, even an article or email, is tedious, dull and time consuming? Either of which I'd find sad.

AI is offering to do an awful lot of stuff that doesn’t need doing, at a huge cost for our planet and our sanity.

Also it’s shit at it.

I find it annoying at work because we've been banned from AI but it still asks us all the time if we want things summarised. Not emails, though. Just long pdfs. Personally, I prefer to use the read aloud function when I struggle to get through it.

It's the beginning of the end of humanity!

I'm not sure what you're asking. This sounds like a good question that deserves better than to be shoved into the AIBU format. Are you asking if it's unreasonable to expect people to read? Are you asking if it's unreasonable to expect people to read as long is it's not difficult reading? Probably. The more interesting question would be where this is heading.

I want AI to do cleaning and housework so I can do more interesting stuff like reading and writing.

I can see there might be times when this feature is useful but I agree that it’s open to overuse and people missing out on actually enjoying the experience of reading something. My DC seem much less engaged with reading than I was at their age, it breaks my heart tbh because it feels like they’re missing out.

Ha ha, I saw someone similar to this but about Art. That was meant to be the point in good sci fi, unfortunately this is not how it has played out. AI will just make us dumber and dumber.

I couldn't agree more with this.

I do feel often with tech it's a case of....but do we actually need something that does that? Just because we have the tech to do that...do I need to be the human experiment of that...

I find with AI, if I ask it a question, it generates so much more information than I need or want.

I also absolutely love long form for the fact that you get to spend time inside someone else's perspective. I've started to really enjoy Press Reader as it has all the online papers in digital format. No bloody AI offering to summarise!

Also, on a more sinister note, I feel it also signals the way to the end of the current model of the internet as we know it, as it means less human traffic going to a website = less hits = less advertising revenue. I'm not sure how that will pan out other than in declining quality.

Edited to add - I learned about what I've described in the last paragraph from a long form article which I read and thoroughly enjoyed in the Economist! It said maybe AI will be made to pay for scraping information so maybe we head toward a subscription model.

Oh god this is something I'm fighting a losing battle against in my industry.

Reading was always a niche activity, sadly. Most people don't have the desire or patience to read at length, and especially not if the writing is complex or requires a bit of thought (this includes most literary writing). This has been exacerbated by the internet decimating everyone's attention spans but let's not pretend that the majority of people in the 80s or 90s were highbrow literature fanatics.

AI is giving most people what they want and reminding those who value other things that they're solidly in the minority, and thus may as well not count.

Fair point. I guess it is a conversation starter for that. I was thinking about it after seeing a post somewhere from someone my age jokily saying (paraphrase, it was actually funny) 'Please younger people send me the article, not the tiktok of the guy talking about the article, I can read fast'

I find it weird the way a lot of tech now seems to be pushing 'Isn't this great? You don't have to read anymore!' And I'm just like... I really don't find having to read things a chore, it doesn't take that long and it helps me absorb knowledge properly. I don't think it's healthy to frame reading as this arduous task and there's lots of research to show its a much better way of acquiring at least some jobs of knowledge than anything else.

@LemonBeagle - agree, so many AI ads amount to 'AI can do stuff you've fine fine without anyone needing to do it'. Like those Salesforce ones, as though no one's been able find their airport gate without AI until now?!

AI seems to produce a bunch of shite anyway. I don't know why anyone would rely on it.

I don’t think reading was always ‘niche’ at all, since the advent of free education.

Reading lengthy, literary writing as a leisure pursuit wasn't a majority pursuit when I was growing up. Think back to your school years and what proportion of the kids wanted to do academically challenging things for fun.

Join me @Echobelly in my boycott of Google or any other tech giant that uses AI without asking me if I want it. So far I've changed my search engine from Google to Ecosia, that's about all I've managed so far..I'm hoping to find an alternative to Google maps (if anyone knows please let me know) and generally more away towards smaller services that don't use AI and maybe have some morality, although I expect my hopes are too high there. I don't know much about technology but that's half the problem, I don't know how to not use these apps in some circumstances. They really have us where they want us.

I work in corporate governance and there are some tools which offer AI summarising documents as though it's a good thing. 1. if things like board papers are written in such a way they need summarising then they are badly written and need overhauling; 2. if directors are not taking the time to read the papers in preparation for meetings then frankly they aren't doing what they're paid to.

I do think there is a place for AI, but I also think there's an overwhelming amount of information being rammed down our throats constantly with algorithms bombarding us with all sorts that we probably need to learn to shut out in order to concentrate on what matters instead. The equivalent of restricting adults' screen time really.

Have you never gone to a web page hoping to get a recipe and you're met with a billion paragraphs of someone's life story that you don't need and have no zero interest in?

It's a same with a lot of articles. A lot of filler. Articles etc that ramble on wernt necessarily meant to be read in full, or is there even any value in doing so, it's meant to fill space. That's why "filler" is even a concept. What people actually want to be finding out is buried in it.

I love reading books and read for pleasure often. Reading a bunch of waffle on a report or article is neither fun nor valuable.

We'd have less need for AI to whittle it down if the authors of these articles (and editors of their platforms) stopped being ridiculous with the filler.

I like reading. A summary is useful of long reports in boring contexts, but you do still need to read the whole lot eventually.

This isn't about AI, its an addition to the theme. I have noticed more and more video is used to give information now.

My children will watch a video to tell them about anything, whereas I find it take so long to watch someone and I just want a transcript I can scan. Our ceo sends out these bloody 6-10 min videos with updates. They are about 2 minutes worth of reading.

I don't think it's new though, ever since writing was invented we've had people who will give you a summary so you don't have the read the original, usually with a dose of their own agenda too. Since it was written you could go and listen to a verbal summary of the bible or other religion text along with some songs and a chat and not have to read anything yourself. And most people's knowledge of law, politics and science come from summaries in newspapers. AI is just the latest version of this, there will always be a demand for it.

Those long reports will soon probably written by AI (if not already!) generated by the author inputting some bullet points. So then we will have an AI summary of an AI report. It would be quicker to just publish the bullet points and cut out the middle man AI.

I switched to duckduckgo on my phone a few months back.

@LemonBeagle again, yes the thing about AI and search on Google will be a game changer for the Internet, and probably not in a good way. Though Google has been going downhill for years as a search engine and doesn't actually give you what you need half the time. I always thought it was dumb how,a few years ago, Google maps started showing you home for sale links at the top when you searched a postcode... as of it might nudge you into casually buying a house while you were browsing?!

That kind of thing, along with AI, is a good example of how technology seeks (sometimes very clumsily, as with maps example above) to change behaviours now, rather than being built around human behaviours.

I’ve not seen this myself and when seeing things about AI in ads it was more about summarising more technical stuff for businesses, not reading for leisure.

There have always been people who do not enjoy reading for leisure or prefer summarisations over reading yet that has also helped people decide if a book is worth reading (if they talk about the premise and characters not how it ends). Before AI, you had people on social media doing summaries, before that Wikipedia and other sites where people could just look it up, before that Cliffsnotes.

Books and reading for leisure is not going anywhere and neither are people who enjoy reading. The enjoyment of reading books starts at home with parents and child. My parents read books for enjoyment and leisure as did my sister and I. Plus, reading was rewarded for at school when I was growing up to encourage reading books. DH reads books as does his mum.

I love reading but I’ll admit reading books for myself is hard when I can’t sit down long without being interrupted so audio books and podcasts about history, true crime, and historical true crime and other things that catch my interest until I eventually get there.

The only books I read atm are the ones to help DS2 with his reading and the children’s books I read to them.

AI is clearly needed to provide succinct summaries of bloated AI generated “content”.

I hate the new thing under FB posts saying "who is x" "why was X upset". It's how the kids are school do comprehension now..they don't read the full page or whatever, they read the question first then scan the page just looking for the answers with no context or understanding. I actually present differently now, I don't give them the questions until they've fully read the passage. It's all about speed, cutting to the chase, what do they "need" and discard all else. It's depressing. And concentration span is decimated. Most of them can't sit through a film (I run a club) without a break, or checking phones. (Same with many adults now tbf).

I've seen stuff about AI can summarise emails to you and write a reply... so we're just going to end up with people's email addresses sending one another messages no one reads?!

I saw the title of this thread and came on to say this about videos. As a small part of my job I do social media and feel that I ought to be making videos to get around algorithms hiding everything else - but I’m baffled by the concept that people actually want to watch someone explain something to camera slowly when they could open a webpage, quickly skim to see if it’s of interest, and if it is, get about three or four times as much information in the same amount of time or less. Either I’m just old-fashioned or else it’s not individual choice that’s driving this content shift, but platforms forcing content that can make people spend more time on there.