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Understanding what a block of text means is hard enough for humans to decipher, so how could we program a machine to do it for us without it having similar flaws? The simple answer is we can’t. Humans are still better at figuring out what a string of words means because it isn’t something that involves computational thought. To understand a piece of writing you have to not just know what each word means, but what they mean together, and in a particular order. You also have to figure out the tone of the piece, because the same sentence in one part of the document could mean something totally different in another. It’s comforting to know that computers can’t seem to quite get this figured out, because there seems to be something uniquely human about the written word, and without it we would be just like the other animals on earth. I think it’s good that the programs that read big blocks of text are still improving though, because I see the value in having condensed summaries of huge legal documents or scientific articles printed out by a machine that can summarize them better than a human could. Based off of the other responses to this article, especially “DCS Response 2 for 10.16.2018” by PE, it seems that most other people feel the same way. We are happy computers aren’t as good at us at this one task, but we understand eventually they could surpass us.