兔兒神

The Atlantic’s new cover story on the decline of reading features a Harvard student who complained that he had to read a book written in "Old English." Now, you might be thinking that he was assigned Beowulf or The Canterbury Tales. Nope. This student was assigned A Clockwork Orange—and used ChatGPT to “translate” it. A Clockwork Orange was written in 1962 (not 1692, which is still modern English, by the way). This student’s grandparents were alive in the 60s. Is he also using a translation bot to speak to them? Yes, I had an easier time than most people with the novel's Nadsat slang because I speak Russian, but you catch on very quickly if you turn on more than two brain cells—and the entire point is to compel you to inhabit Alex’s deranged mind, which is cool! For the first time in my life, I feel bad for Alex from A Clockwork Orange for being so misunderstood.