This is something I wanted to write about for a while. One of the common complaints about generative AI is that everyone suddenly has access to a tool that helps them write in flawless English, or for that matter, in any of the many languages AI works with. People who once struggled to put together a proper email, letter or article are suddenly producing perfectly readable prose. I do not see this entirely as a bad thing. If more people can communicate better, written communication becomes much more effective. Struggling to express ourselves clearly is no fun, either for the person writing or the one trying to understand. A good idea can easily get lost because the person who holds it struggles to put it into words. But let us remember how things were before AI came along. Back in those days, people in positions of authority or power often had people with a good command of language working under them. In Bhutan, someone who was good at Dzongkha or English would draft a letter, prep...
Back when I was a student in a remote school in Bhutan, English textbooks were not always easy to understand. English was a foreign language to us, and our comprehension was limited. A difficult poem remained difficult, while a complicated story sometimes became even more complicated after we had read it. Then, sometime during junior high school, I came across Ramji Lall. More precisely, I came across his guidebooks, and they came as a relief. Difficult plots were explained in simple language. Poems had summaries, characters had descriptions, and themes were laid out clearly. Suddenly, some of those difficult texts began to make sense. What surprised me was that Ramji Lall seemed to have a guide for everything. Poetry, short stories, dramas, novels and even some of the English texts we studied. If a literary work was prescribed in school, there was a good chance Ramji Lall had already written something about it. I sometimes wondered how one man managed to read so much, let alone write ...