It tried to analyze some Churchill, but "didn’t understand the purpose of the speech." A politician talking? Purposeless? Well...ok, computer. You can slide on that. Passages from A Clockwork Orange were "deemed incomprehensible," as well, although that may have had something to do with the Nasdat involved.
The program also gave Hemingway below average, which, you know, shame on it. But the worst part?
It is already in use in America, where some children have learnt to write in a style which the computer appreciates, known as "schmoozing the computer".No, children, you're supposed to schmooze your teachers, by bringing them apples and sucking up, thus making yourselves unpopular and setting the world up for more teen movies. These are time honored traditions!
I know this is the audience to which I can say: if you're putting in the effort to write something, you at least hope a person will actually read it (no offense to my robot followers).
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This explains so much.
ReplyDeleteAt least four of the highest-traffic agent blogs are written by that same computer.
Ouch.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me want to say bad things about the teachers using that thing, but I am going to refrain. With great effort.
Finally, an uninteresting brain to go with uninteresting Text-to-speech software.
ReplyDeleteYikes! I know a lot of schools use a program that analyzes essays for plagerism. A report is emailed to the professor with % of lifted material and the sources used. That seems like a better use of computers...
ReplyDeleteI second Kendra's "yikes". The idea of kids writing to a style that suits a computer which can't even recognise good writing? Sheesh. That's a shame.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like the SAT readers!
ReplyDeleteIn all fairness, though, far too many students haven't even mastered basic structure (which is extremely tedious to grade), and speeches and novels are far different from essays.
It still defeats the purpose of a teacher, though, doesn't it? (For instance: being correct.)
i dunno, i think learning to schmooze a computer may be a good skill to have later in life. If you can schmooze a comp, surely you can schmooze a ceo, yes?
ReplyDeleteAs long as they're also learning real writing skills (which i doubt...)