Bullet list -> AI text generator -> AI text summarizer -> Bullet list
Perhaps OpenAI can optimize the process by storing the original prompt and just giving it back at the last phase.
this is quite saddening.
IIRC the high-school-graduate equivalent adult literacy rate from similar studies—as in, possessing reading skills that we hope a high school graduate would have, which basically equates to being able to read two moderate-length, moderate-complexity texts and understand them well enough to synthesize a description of their positions, and how they agree and differ—isn't much more than 20%. Four out of five people you encounter are going through life constantly struggling to understand WTF is happening or what they're supposed to do and getting by on a lot of guesswork, while all continually mis-communicating with one another. Really explains a lot.
To continue the entirety of the quote which makes it not seem quite as dammning:
"Literacy in the United States was categorized by the National Center for Education Statistics into different literacy levels, with 92% of American adults having at least "Level 1" literacy in 2019.[1] According to a 2020 report by the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level.[2]
In many nations, the ability to read a simple sentence suffices as literacy, and was the previous standard for the U.S. The definition of literacy has changed greatly; the term is presently defined as the ability to use printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential.[3]"
A disturbingly high proportion of US adults (at least in the US—I don't know how this looks in other countries) barely count as literate. Perhaps half[1]. Most of the rest aren't a ton better, and can't write worth a damn.
I think "on average" understates the case: at least 90% of US adults would probably get better results by passing their writing through ChatGPT, than not. Most of that remaining 10% would also see improvements from ChatGPT, except for writing they've put a great deal of effort into. It's very good at cleaning up writing, and/or tuning it to be better-suited to some purpose than the original was.
In fact, a large majority of readers in the US would probably benefit from passing what they read through ChatGPT and having it summarize it concisely, in very simple terms.
The world makes a lot more sense, to those who grew up taking to the written word as naturally as a duck to water, when we appreciate that the world runs on the written word, yet most people are terrible readers and worse writers.
[1] "According to a 2020 report by the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level." And, nb, if you're a good reader and you're thinking "6th grade level, that's not so bad", your idea of what a "6th-grade level" looks like, is probably skewed way higher than what they mean.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States