There’s all this chat about using AI to write stuff, isn’t there.

Our view is that what AI produces is usually flat, stilted, dull, and sometimes just wrong.

It is, after all, simply distilling the sum of all other writing on the theme or the format required, and producing something based on this massive repository of banal output (most written material is basically like taking a written Mogadon).

Oh Lord, you’re thinking… he’s just going to go on about how humans are better than AI… isn’t he?

But hold hard there. I’m not.

Until the advent of AI that can generate text, what were we all complaining about?

Illiteracy, of course.

In some cases it was stunningly BAD.

You would have people who were (astonishingly) very good at their jobs, but who literally could not string a sentence together on the page. ‘It’s not really my thing’ they would say.

How incredibly lazy they were.

And that flowed through to more minor offences. These included, for instance, saying ‘their’ (possessive) when they meant ‘there’ (preposition) or even when they meant ‘they’re’ (verb).

Here’s a controversial statement, then.

Maybe it’s actually better that AI is generating text for these people. Better than the gobbledygook they might otherwise be sharing! At least it’s grammatically correct. At least the punctuation works. At least it makes some sort of sense and doesn’t mislead or mystify the reader.

Now this year is the National Year of Reading here in the UK.

It’s being massively publicized – all of which is a very, very good thing.

Yet is the elephant in the room not being acknowledged?

Never mind just reading.

Most people can’t write well (dull & uninspiring).

Many people can’t write clearly (likely to lead to misunderstanding or even offence).

Some people can barely write at all (just don’t really know what they’re saying).

In a world where we are generating more and more content, that means our world is increasingly being filled with the ill-expressed, the unclear, the misleading, the misunderstood, the obfuscating, the inaccurate, the downright WRONG.

Everyone’s an author nowadays.

But half the time we can’t understand what they’re saying.

And for most of the other half, what they are writing isn’t worth reading!

What to do?

The answer lies right back at school.

Levels of literacy are being threatened by a two-tier education system in the UK (state/private).

Levels of literacy are damaged by successive governments talking loud but not really acting effectively to boost attainment levels.

Levels of literacy are being undermined by the unswerving emphasis on STEM subjects.

Levels of literacy are being suppressed by the lack of interventions with parents to support a phase shift in their children’s standards.

Investment in literacy – reading and writing – would make the world a better place.

We would express ourselves better.

We would be clearer.

We would avoid offence and misunderstanding.

We would save time.

We would avoid frustration.

We would be more confident.

We would be better off all round.