AI-Written Stereophile Articles

AI is only a bandage for a slow decay in our education system. My wife is a graduate of one of the more better (see what I did there) journalism schools in the country. She has both taught English and worked for major associations as a writer/editor and marketing chief.

I, on the other hand am not nearly as skillful with language. Perhaps a minor excuse is that English is not my first language. I have spoken it almost exclusively since about 7 years old. I am pretty good at parroting so I can get by (usually) without embarrassing myself. My marriage to her has significantly improved my skill in regard to language use as can be attested to by the slap marks on my wrists.

To the point, she currently writes and edits a monthly for a professional trade publication. She has to edit, and many times re-write articles submitted by engineers. As nonoise mentioned about "educated idiots", Too many of them are excellent engineers but are unable to write coherent sentences.

I recall reading something many years ago to the effect that current college graduates don't have near the command of language of high school graduates of yore when working as secretaries. Excuse me, administrative assistants.

Perhaps we need to blow up the teacher's unions and start over. Less DEI, or as I like to refer to it, DIE and more of the three R's.

I attended a University of California campus (UC Davis, formerly the University Farm) in the 1960s.  All incoming freshmen had to take a Subject A English exam; if you failed the exam, you had to take a 3-hour one-semester course in remedial English that earned zero graduation credits for an additional fee.  If I recall correctly, about 35% of the freshmen—the top 10% of California high school graduates—failed the exam.  Again, If I recall correctly, by the 1980s the failure rate was over 50%, and I read reports that they eventually dropped the requirement.  This would indicate a failure in our elementary and secondary education system, but serious problems exist in higher education, as well.  I have read in a reputable source that at one of the Ivy League Universities, you can earn a BA in History without taking any American History.  When I was a freshman, all students in the College of Letters and Sciences had to take History 17A&B, two semesters of American History.  My suspicion is that as colleges and universities have added a wide range of new and at times narrowly-defined degrees in functional fields, they have jettisoned many of the basics.  

Finally, after receiving my BA in History, I earned my MA in Political Science.  When I started those graduate courses, I was very concerned that I did not know all the Poli Sci jargon, but I quickly found out that the younger students did not know their history, one student at the school even insisting that the U.S. started the Korean War in 1950 by attacking North Korea, an absurd position even before we learned from Soviet archives that Stalin gave Kim Il Sung the go-ahead to attack the South.  One of my best professors taught a course on revolution and change in the 20th century, an excellent examination of the Bolshevik, Italian Fascist, and Nazi seizures of power; by the 1980s, however, he wrote me that the most of the students just wanted to know “how to make bombs.”
 

Ignorance, and mindless activism in many cases, is bliss … at least to some.

@mike4597 Very sad.  I graduated UCLA in 76' double major in Political Science (bureaucracy specialty) and History (European history-never took an American history course though) in 3 years.  I was always good in English but not a consistently good test taker.  In 12th grade advanced placement English, I was considered the worst student because I am unimaginative as a fiction writer as well as uninterested in existentialism being taught.  Our requirement not to take dumbbell college English was to achieve a 550 score on the Achievement test.  I took it and scored a 390, failure. I told the teacher I had bad test day and took it again six weeks later.  The teacher was upset as she never had a student having to take dumbbelI English. I scored a 690, success.  She warned me not to waste my money on taking the AP exam one of four I took).  She was wrong again, I got a 4 out of 5 (and 3 5s on others).  Well I sort of lucked out.  Studying for the European AP history test, I studied English literature, Dickens in particular.  On the English AP test there were numerous references to Dickens literature.  As to the essay, I also lucked out as it required an written debate on any topic.  The prior week, Israeli leaders were split on whether or not to have a big military parade in Jerusalem, one said it would infuriate the local Arabs the other it would show their strength.  I made up the dialogue.  

I never took an English course at UCLA. Southwestern Law JD at 22 and MPA at 24.  History and Politics are my special knowledge areas.  I preferred taking science courses to English, read foreign language literature (I'm a major opera lover), took music and art history courses for no credit all at UCLA, six courses per quarter and 2 to 3 course papers.  No talent in art either-terrible, about as bad as my fiction writing ability; however, my dreams often have phenomenal and bizarre storylines.  I can't repeat jokes but I make hysterically funny comments extemporaneously (I keep my wife laughing and my choirs have had a ball laughing at a perfectly timed outburst-timing is everything).  

@mike4597 Your statistics are extremely alarming.  How many fully functioning young Americans are there?  You and I remember the anti-war Vietnam protests.  We were afraid of being drafted for a poorly conducted war which did not directly affect us, like an Afghanistan war (unending yet unwinnable just like the Soviets had found out although mineral rich). 

Today's pro-Palestinian pro-Hamas protests/riots are NOT like those as they are promoting terrorists/terrorism.  Those protestors/rioters hate America as well.  They are evil (and the students are basically stupid and uneducated, the fault of the education system and their parents family failure to instill American pride).  

Back when I graduated from high school ('72), the average students vocabulary consisted of about 70,000 words. By the '90s, it was down to around 35,000. I hate to think what that number is now. I'm way past despair. 

All the best,
Nonoise