So I'm going to tell you a little story, and afterwards....you probably need to pour a shot or two of some whiskey and reflect upon the story.
Some intelligent Germans sat down....analyzed German society, and came to this new view of reality. According to a 2018 study....the reality is that around 17 million German adults (18-to-64)....read, write and even probably understand....ONLY at the 4th grade level. I would imagine that you included the 65-and-over age group....it probably gets you up to 20 million people.
Meaning? One out of five Germans you might encounter....grasp things at the 4th grade level.
The folks at ARD TV (public TV, Channel 1) sat down and thought about this. Eventually, they came to this conclusion....you need two newscasts (of the 8PM news segment). One at the normal level, and one at what they call 'text-level'.
They also note....there's a fair sum of people in Germany (at least 10-million) who aren't native German speakers, and this text-level would fit for them as well.
The use of AI into this? Well....they didn't really say that, but the more I look at this discussion...you'd have to have some AI system in the background....taking a 1,200 word text document, blending it in some fashion....to come out with a text that is geared for a 4th grade kid or adult.
Problems here? I sat and pondered upon it.
To be honest, if you've ever had to go and deal with customer service or some commerce operation (doesn't matter if in the US, UK or Germany)....you were always going to have a 30-percent chance that you were dealing with a 'lesser-person' (meaning, someone not that bright).
But I sat and looked over this alternate news idea (to be on tagesschau24, on YouTube and in the ARD media library). What if a majority of people (even the smarter folks) drifted over and consumed their news at a lesser level.....that people trained themselves to fit appropriately at the 4th grade level?
Then I came to the final issue in my mind....what if 17-million German adults can't comprehend politicians and their 'promises' beyond the 4th grade level? Would you need politicians speaking at the 4th grade level for people to understand?
Source: here.
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