App simplifies the vocabulary of classic books

It’s McLiterature.

A newly launched artificial intelligence app for iPhone and iPad is abridgement of iconic literary works such as “Moby Dick” and “A Tale of Two Cities” – while whitewashing classics such as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

Magibook’s website says the company uses artificial intelligence to simplify the language of books like The Count of Monte Cristo and Crime and Punishment, making them more accessible to all readers, “regardless of your English level.”

Ultimately, however, the app takes away the meaning of the original texts and the emotions that the authors wanted to express with their prose.

Basic lines like “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” are reduced to “It was a time when things were very good and very bad.”

The 219 now controversial occurrences of the N-word in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” are replaced on Magibook by the noun “helper”.

Currently, users of the free app, which launched on July 1, can access five different versions of ten classic books, including “Dracula,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “The Three Musketeers,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “The Great Gatsby” – from the original version to an “elementary version.”

Cassandra Jacobs, a linguistics professor at the University of Buffalo, called the new app “alarming” and noted that engaging with complicated texts “makes us smarter.”

She also noted that authors choose certain words “very consciously” when writing and believes that ideas would be lost due to AI.

“There can be inconsistencies when you take a whole book and spit out an abridged version. That might give people a different idea of ​​what these stories are about,” she said.

The app is said to be designed to “democratize books and their ideas” and is recommended for “English learners,” children, parents, teachers, and people with dyslexia and severe ADHD.

The developer of the app, Louis Gachot, could not be reached for comment.