BoM/TWS Message Forum

I believe I understand what you mean, and I think it might be a mentality issue on my part, because I'm fairly skeptical of AI, so I don't personally see it as unbelievable that people in the story might not be 100% confident in a chatGPT translation. Especially because it outright says it can be mistaken.

I'll admit that TikTok is probably particularly jarring to me because I don't use or like it lol, but I perceive it as a very modern and new social media website even though I suppose it really isn't at this point. But it's also that you don't mention it very often, so when it does come up, I notice it. Instagram isn't as jarring because you've both mentioned it more often and it's been around longer, and it was getting pretty big around the time I headcanon the story taking place.

I will say that I am of the opinion that if a new person starts reading the story, and their first thought is that AI is insufficiently referenced in a story that first started over half a decade before OpenAI was even founded, the problem rests with that person and not the story tbh.

In regards to your last point, I guess it depends on what the aim is. There's nothing wrong with having a contemporary adaptation, but it's an adaptation, not meant to be the original work. If one where to write a story using the same version of the characters, it shouldn't be jumping times. I never got into the Hardy Boys myself, but I am a fan of Sherlock Holmes stories, and if one where to write a story using Sherlock that's meant to be continuing on from where ACD left off, and then yeah, it should be a period piece, I'd probably have a few problems with it if Holmes pulled out an iPhone lol. But I wouldn't if it's something like Elementary.

Though the debate of whether to modernize a new Hardy Boys or Sherlock Holmes story is definitely a less complicated situation than how to handle a story like BoM that's still being updated in times that are changing very fast.