Ezra Klein

And what if it happened would make you think the system is breaking and we are on this path that when you look back at it, you'll realize we were losing things we cannot easily rebuild. Mm-hmm.

And what if it happened would make you think the system is breaking and we are on this path that when you look back at it, you'll realize we were losing things we cannot easily rebuild. Mm-hmm.

And that's a place to end then. Always our final question is what are some books you'd recommend to the audience? And Zach, why don't we begin with you?

And that's a place to end then. Always our final question is what are some books you'd recommend to the audience? And Zach, why don't we begin with you?

And also what liberal, what I love about that book, and I do love that book, is that is that I, in a way, think liberalism never looks as inspiring as when viewed through the eyes of its critics. Like, look at what they think liberalism is. Not the dry, technocratic, kind of exhausted thing it began to feel like, but what they understood it to be and its power to be is really interesting.

And also what liberal, what I love about that book, and I do love that book, is that is that I, in a way, think liberalism never looks as inspiring as when viewed through the eyes of its critics. Like, look at what they think liberalism is. Not the dry, technocratic, kind of exhausted thing it began to feel like, but what they understood it to be and its power to be is really interesting.

Liberalism in its photo negative is fascinating.

Liberalism in its photo negative is fascinating.

Zach Beecham, Andrew Morantz, thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks. This was great. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.

Zach Beecham, Andrew Morantz, thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks. This was great. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.

Here's a statistic I've been thinking about recently. So in 1976, if you ask high school seniors, have they read some books in the last year for fun? Around 40% of them had read at least six books for fun in the last year. Only about 11% hadn't read a single book for fun. Today, those numbers are basically reversed. About 40% haven't read a single book for fun.

Here's a statistic I've been thinking about recently. So in 1976, if you ask high school seniors, have they read some books in the last year for fun? Around 40% of them had read at least six books for fun in the last year. Only about 11% hadn't read a single book for fun. Today, those numbers are basically reversed. About 40% haven't read a single book for fun.

If you are looking for this, you see it everywhere right now. There are all these headlines about how kids are not reading the way they once did. There are all these stories quoting professors, even at Ivy League universities, about the way in which when they try to assign the reading that they've been assigning their entire careers, their students, they just can't do it anymore.

If you are looking for this, you see it everywhere right now. There are all these headlines about how kids are not reading the way they once did. There are all these stories quoting professors, even at Ivy League universities, about the way in which when they try to assign the reading that they've been assigning their entire careers, their students, they just can't do it anymore.

And so the professors are adjusting. They're changing the books, making them shorter, making them simpler, making the reading just less burdensome. we're losing something. We can see it on test scores that over the last decade, we just see the number of kids reading at grade level slipping. And then of course the pandemic accelerated that.

And so the professors are adjusting. They're changing the books, making them shorter, making them simpler, making the reading just less burdensome. we're losing something. We can see it on test scores that over the last decade, we just see the number of kids reading at grade level slipping. And then of course the pandemic accelerated that.

So if you were simply asking, how are the kids doing on some of these intellectual faculties that we once thought were the core of what education was trying to promote, they're not doing well. And then as if we summoned it, as if we wrote it into the script.

So if you were simply asking, how are the kids doing on some of these intellectual faculties that we once thought were the core of what education was trying to promote, they're not doing well. And then as if we summoned it, as if we wrote it into the script.

Here comes this technology, generative AI, that can do it for them, that'll read the book and summarize it for you, that'll write the essay for you, that'll do the math problem, even shown its work, for you. We know gen AI is being used at mass scale by students to cheat. But its challenge is more fundamental to that. Of course, using it that way, we call it cheating.

Here comes this technology, generative AI, that can do it for them, that'll read the book and summarize it for you, that'll write the essay for you, that'll do the math problem, even shown its work, for you. We know gen AI is being used at mass scale by students to cheat. But its challenge is more fundamental to that. Of course, using it that way, we call it cheating.