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- "a reading ease of 74.9 (fairly easy)" Yeah, that's a very unnecessary misuse of AI. Is there an open-source human rating site for serious books, in how dif

- "a reading ease of 74.9 (fairly easy)" Yeah, that's a very unnecessary misuse of AI. Is there an open-source human rating site for serious books, in how difficult they are to read—how tedious, how erudite, how much pain you have to go through to get whatever reward you think you get at the end? With Ulysses near the edge of one axis, Moby Dick demarcating another... Surely this is all common knowledge to bookish people, but, where do they write it down?

AlbertCory 2y ago
re "unvetted" and difficulty thereof : there are already reviews of its difficulty elsewhere on the Web, e.g. from Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6752242 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6752242 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4827595524 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4827595524 1. Telemachus. Difficulty : 0 2. Nestor. Difficulty : 0 3. Proteus Difficulty : 9 4. Calypso. Difficulty : 5 5. The Lotus Eaters. Difficulty : 4 6. Hades. Difficulty : 3 7. Aeolus. Difficulty : 5 8. The Laestrygonians. Difficulty : 5 etc.
robin_reala 2y ago
Hardly AI, just a simple Python function that implements the Flesch reading ease algorithm: https://github.com/standardebooks/tools/blob/effcf0f6db0572950375e7b2fd748fb1ae675e6c/se/formatting.py#L173 https://github.com/standardebooks/tools/blob/effcf0f6db05729...
- perihelions 2y ago
  Right, and whether you call it "General AI" or "trivial Python script" my complaint stands–that it's a misfeature for the user, the novice reader user, the English-as-a-foreign-language user, who relies on a machine review that tell them reading Joyce is "easy English". That would seriously suck if that happened to someone, though I assume that's statistically unlikely (particularly given Joyce-is-difficult-English is a widely-known meme). It'd be an unpleasant experience, like being told glue is tasty on a pizza. I *get* that my opinion is an unpopular and minority one, so I accept the downvotes and ridicule, fine. This is the minority viewpoint I hold, I stubbornly stand by; and the hill I will die on. That it's disrespectful to users to inject unvetted machine scoring into book reviews; it's a malfeature and should not be a socially accepted practice. Treat the human user with awed respect; where you can help them, help, and where you don't know, say nothing—don't let loose some talking Python script. The user doesn't know the limitations of your script; the user doesn't know the language you posted on your page isn't authoritative language and is prone to major errors.
  - rpdillon 2y ago
    > That it's disrespectful to users to inject unvetted machine scoring into book reviews Very, very far from being unvetted. This algorithm has been used, unchanged, for the 50 years since Flesch–Kincaid was developed. I've used this metric for my entire life as a rough indicator of difficulty, and it is widely accepted. But it's a limited metric: it has two factors for difficulty that generally rate text as more difficult if it has more words per sentence and more syllables per word. It's a good heuristic, but as with all heuristics, there will be edge cases, and Ulysses is one of them. As I do with all critiques, I guess I'd ask you to make a better suggestion for Standard Ebooks. Given their resources, and the available alternative of "have a panel of diverse humans read every book and grade its difficulty", your position is dangerously close to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Is your argument that Standard Ebooks would be a better product if they didn't include reading ease metrics? If so, I respectfully disagree. > Treat the human user with awed respect; where you can help them, help, and where you don't know, say nothing—don't let loose some talking Python script. The user doesn't know the limitations of your script; the user doesn't know the language you posted on your page isn't authoritative language and is prone to major errors. I don't think this is fair. Reading ease has flaws, but is widely accepted (although seemingly poorly understood, despite its simplicity). The guy who runs readable.com (DaveChild) responded to a post on Reddit about reading scores a few years back (that thread was also filled with tons of misinformation about how this is some black-box AI algorithm that's making everyone stupid), but his comment was quite well-grounded: > Readability scores are fairly crude, almost by design, because they were all created at a time when they had to be worked out without computers. But they do give a decent idea of the overall readability of a piece, and that helps you to see if your content is too wordy. They are not, by themselves, an indicator of quality. They are not a substitute for proofreading and editing. But they are a useful tool to have in your arsenal. This is a balanced, practical opinion. Life is filled with proxy metrics that are flawed, from insurance risk and credit ratings to SAT scores and the ability to do whiteboard-coding. In context, I think Standard Ebooks made exactly the right choice to incorporate some measure of reading ease in their offering, even if it doesn't get it 100% right 100% of the time.
    - perihelions 2y ago
- xandrius 2y ago
  Everything is AI to an untrained person.
  - hedora 2y ago
    Also, these days, most AI is just a simple python program.
    - tiagod 2y ago
      Well, sure, because all the complexity emerges in the weights
- erikpukinskis 2y ago
  AI stands for “artificial intelligence” and I think an algorithm which decides how easy a book is to read qualifies as some sort of intelligence.
  - picture 2y ago
    The input to the algorithm is literally three numbers: total words, total sentences, total syllables. If this counts as AI, then your thermostat or film camera feels pretty AI too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readability_tests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readabi...
    - wan23 2y ago
      Perhaps we could use AI to give us a score for how AI a given AI is
      - logicallee 2y ago
        ChatGPT gives it a score of 0. https://chatgpt.com/share/c1e700bc-7353-427e-a953-1e234f5e9625 https://chatgpt.com/share/c1e700bc-7353-427e-a953-1e234f5e96...
        erikpukinskis 2y ago
        Good data point, but a little bit biased.
squigz 2y ago
Who even mentioned AI here?

AlbertCory 2y ago

re "unvetted" and difficulty thereof : there are already reviews of its difficulty elsewhere on the Web, e.g. from Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6752242 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6752242 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4827595524 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4827595524 1. Telemachus. Difficulty : 0 2. Nestor. Difficulty : 0 3. Proteus Difficulty : 9 4. Calypso. Difficulty : 5 5. The Lotus Eaters. Difficulty : 4 6. Hades. Difficulty : 3 7. Aeolus. Difficulty : 5 8. The Laestrygonians. Difficulty : 5 etc.

robin_reala 2y ago

Hardly AI, just a simple Python function that implements the Flesch reading ease algorithm: https://github.com/standardebooks/tools/blob/effcf0f6db0572950375e7b2fd748fb1ae675e6c/se/formatting.py#L173 https://github.com/standardebooks/tools/blob/effcf0f6db05729...

perihelions 2y ago
Right, and whether you call it "General AI" or "trivial Python script" my complaint stands–that it's a misfeature for the user, the novice reader user, the English-as-a-foreign-language user, who relies on a machine review that tell them reading Joyce is "easy English". That would seriously suck if that happened to someone, though I assume that's statistically unlikely (particularly given Joyce-is-difficult-English is a widely-known meme). It'd be an unpleasant experience, like being told glue is tasty on a pizza. I *get* that my opinion is an unpopular and minority one, so I accept the downvotes and ridicule, fine. This is the minority viewpoint I hold, I stubbornly stand by; and the hill I will die on. That it's disrespectful to users to inject unvetted machine scoring into book reviews; it's a malfeature and should not be a socially accepted practice. Treat the human user with awed respect; where you can help them, help, and where you don't know, say nothing—don't let loose some talking Python script. The user doesn't know the limitations of your script; the user doesn't know the language you posted on your page isn't authoritative language and is prone to major errors.
- rpdillon 2y ago
  > That it's disrespectful to users to inject unvetted machine scoring into book reviews Very, very far from being unvetted. This algorithm has been used, unchanged, for the 50 years since Flesch–Kincaid was developed. I've used this metric for my entire life as a rough indicator of difficulty, and it is widely accepted. But it's a limited metric: it has two factors for difficulty that generally rate text as more difficult if it has more words per sentence and more syllables per word. It's a good heuristic, but as with all heuristics, there will be edge cases, and Ulysses is one of them. As I do with all critiques, I guess I'd ask you to make a better suggestion for Standard Ebooks. Given their resources, and the available alternative of "have a panel of diverse humans read every book and grade its difficulty", your position is dangerously close to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Is your argument that Standard Ebooks would be a better product if they didn't include reading ease metrics? If so, I respectfully disagree. > Treat the human user with awed respect; where you can help them, help, and where you don't know, say nothing—don't let loose some talking Python script. The user doesn't know the limitations of your script; the user doesn't know the language you posted on your page isn't authoritative language and is prone to major errors. I don't think this is fair. Reading ease has flaws, but is widely accepted (although seemingly poorly understood, despite its simplicity). The guy who runs readable.com (DaveChild) responded to a post on Reddit about reading scores a few years back (that thread was also filled with tons of misinformation about how this is some black-box AI algorithm that's making everyone stupid), but his comment was quite well-grounded: > Readability scores are fairly crude, almost by design, because they were all created at a time when they had to be worked out without computers. But they do give a decent idea of the overall readability of a piece, and that helps you to see if your content is too wordy. They are not, by themselves, an indicator of quality. They are not a substitute for proofreading and editing. But they are a useful tool to have in your arsenal. This is a balanced, practical opinion. Life is filled with proxy metrics that are flawed, from insurance risk and credit ratings to SAT scores and the ability to do whiteboard-coding. In context, I think Standard Ebooks made exactly the right choice to incorporate some measure of reading ease in their offering, even if it doesn't get it 100% right 100% of the time.
  - perihelions 2y ago
xandrius 2y ago
Everything is AI to an untrained person.
- hedora 2y ago
  Also, these days, most AI is just a simple python program.
  - tiagod 2y ago
    Well, sure, because all the complexity emerges in the weights
erikpukinskis 2y ago
AI stands for “artificial intelligence” and I think an algorithm which decides how easy a book is to read qualifies as some sort of intelligence.
- picture 2y ago
  The input to the algorithm is literally three numbers: total words, total sentences, total syllables. If this counts as AI, then your thermostat or film camera feels pretty AI too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readability_tests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readabi...
  - wan23 2y ago
    Perhaps we could use AI to give us a score for how AI a given AI is
    - logicallee 2y ago
      ChatGPT gives it a score of 0. https://chatgpt.com/share/c1e700bc-7353-427e-a953-1e234f5e9625 https://chatgpt.com/share/c1e700bc-7353-427e-a953-1e234f5e96...
      - erikpukinskis 2y ago
        Good data point, but a little bit biased.

squigz 2y ago

Who even mentioned AI here?