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Duolingo CEO tries to walk back AI-first comments, fails

Technology
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  • In another thread someone told me you can buy gems or something to keep your streak going.

    That would've made me uninstall long before his comments.

    I remember easily getting gems for free. Also the streak basically doesn't matter at all. What made me uninstall is the slow pace. It felt like I was stuck on the same words and topics forever. It felt like I was not actually learning anything, which if you've ever started learning a language if a formal setting, is very apparent.

  • Those rich idiots figure you just have to act a certain way, and they conveniently forget that you also need the talent to justify the act instead of just being born with a silver spoon. It´s also that silver spoon shields them from many of the consequences and being called out.

  • Well, the crux of the problem is that AI is trying to approximate intelligence. That's not useful for a CEO.

    Respec the AI with lots of points into Charisma and Legal Dexterity. It also needs a large amount of Gold to get started.

  • In another thread someone told me you can buy gems or something to keep your streak going.

    That would've made me uninstall long before his comments.

    Theres also basically zero server side-checking on anything. Hacked APKs let you get premium features for free :3

  • Theres also basically zero server side-checking on anything. Hacked APKs let you get premium features for free :3

    Got any recommendations for where to find said APKs?

  • Theres also basically zero server side-checking on anything. Hacked APKs let you get premium features for free :3

    That's awful! Could you please let me know where these APKs are hosted so that I may avoid them?

  • Got any recommendations for where to find said APKs?

    Just a guess , but maybe the extra net by the bay of torrent.

  • I remember easily getting gems for free. Also the streak basically doesn't matter at all. What made me uninstall is the slow pace. It felt like I was stuck on the same words and topics forever. It felt like I was not actually learning anything, which if you've ever started learning a language if a formal setting, is very apparent.

    I've found it's best for drilling and not for learning. You'll probably learn faster by reading a textbook or listening to something like the Michel Thomas method that gets you speaking super fast. Then you can hop on Duolingo and make it stick. The secret is knowing the vocabulary beforehand to finish the lessons faster by focusing on your accuracy instead. It's still a lot of grinding, though. 😅

  • In another thread someone told me you can buy gems or something to keep your streak going.

    That would've made me uninstall long before his comments.

    I'm a long time user of Duolingo and you earn plenty to give yourself the occasional streak freeze if you can't go two days without doing a lesson. It's not really as predatory as it sounds. It's nothing like pay to win type games.

    Fuck Duolingo for the AI shit though, don't mistake me for a Duolingo simp thinking their blameless. It's just that the monetization is not as predatory as it sounds.

  • I'm a long time user of Duolingo and you earn plenty to give yourself the occasional streak freeze if you can't go two days without doing a lesson. It's not really as predatory as it sounds. It's nothing like pay to win type games.

    Fuck Duolingo for the AI shit though, don't mistake me for a Duolingo simp thinking their blameless. It's just that the monetization is not as predatory as it sounds.

    I have so many could probably keep a streak foing indefinitely without ever doing a lesson, but I'd need to log in every couple days to repurchase the streak freeze.

  • I'm a long time user of Duolingo and you earn plenty to give yourself the occasional streak freeze if you can't go two days without doing a lesson. It's not really as predatory as it sounds. It's nothing like pay to win type games.

    Fuck Duolingo for the AI shit though, don't mistake me for a Duolingo simp thinking their blameless. It's just that the monetization is not as predatory as it sounds.

    Ah, okay, thanks for the info! I've never used Duolingo so I genuinely don't know.

    • Following backlash to statements that Duolingo will be AI-first, threatening jobs in the process, CEO Luis von Ahn has tried to walk back his statement.
    • Unfortunately, the CEO doesn’t walk back any of the key points he originally outlined, choosing instead to try, and fail to placate the maddening crowd.
    • Unfortunately the PR team may soon be replaced by AI as this latest statement has done anything but instil confidence in the firm’s users.

    I deleted the app the second he said this. Get fucked, AI.

    • Following backlash to statements that Duolingo will be AI-first, threatening jobs in the process, CEO Luis von Ahn has tried to walk back his statement.
    • Unfortunately, the CEO doesn’t walk back any of the key points he originally outlined, choosing instead to try, and fail to placate the maddening crowd.
    • Unfortunately the PR team may soon be replaced by AI as this latest statement has done anything but instil confidence in the firm’s users.

    Tl;Dr: skip the apps unless they're part of a bigger in-person course. Prefer reputable sources like pimsleur and mango languages. If you have no rush, get graded readers and watch a lot of YouTube, podcasts, etc.

    Ok, so here are my two cents on learning languages and the whole category of learning apps. They are all flawed on some major way or another. But mostly it is about pacing learning progress.

    Teaching absolute beginners is easy. They know nothing, thus anything you show them will be progress. The actual difficulty when learning a language is finding appropriate material for your level of understanding, such that you understand most of it, but still find new things to learn. This is known as comprehensible input. The difficulty of most apps is that they are not capable of detecting then adapting study content accordingly to the student's progress. So they typically go way too slow, or sometimes too fast. Leaving the student frustrated and halting learning.

    Jumping with some nonzero knowledge into any app is also torture. It's known as the valley of despair. The beginner content is too boring and dull, now that you know a bit, but the intermediate level is way too much of a gap for you yet.

    My advice is to skip language learning apps. The "motivation via gamification hypothesis" is flawed and lacks nuance and understanding of behavioral science. People don't stop studying out of a lack of tokens, gems, streaks or achievement badges. It's because the content itself is uninteresting and bores them. Sure, the celebration and streaks work at first, but they usually lose effect by something known as reinforcement depreciation. The same stimulus shown too much or too frequently stops being gratifying. The biggest reward for learning a language is actually using it.

    A method that is known to work is to find graded readers. Watch a lot of YouTube, podcasts, social media, in the target language (avoid the language learning influencers) listen to native influencers speaking about topics you care about. Books work, in-person courses work, learning apps are good to start you up form absolute zero. But most learning happens on what you do in your everyday life. Using the language is the most effective way of becoming good at the language. Everything else is just excuses for using it.

    • Following backlash to statements that Duolingo will be AI-first, threatening jobs in the process, CEO Luis von Ahn has tried to walk back his statement.
    • Unfortunately, the CEO doesn’t walk back any of the key points he originally outlined, choosing instead to try, and fail to placate the maddening crowd.
    • Unfortunately the PR team may soon be replaced by AI as this latest statement has done anything but instil confidence in the firm’s users.

    AI is social cancer

    It's a lie told by marketing companies that have gaslit artists into automating their creativity and gaslit governments into automating fascism

  • I deleted the app the second he said this. Get fucked, AI.

    Make sure you also start the account deletion process.

  • I'm a long time user of Duolingo and you earn plenty to give yourself the occasional streak freeze if you can't go two days without doing a lesson. It's not really as predatory as it sounds. It's nothing like pay to win type games.

    Fuck Duolingo for the AI shit though, don't mistake me for a Duolingo simp thinking their blameless. It's just that the monetization is not as predatory as it sounds.

    I think it should be added that people who pay premium get infinite lives, everyone else gets 1 life every 6-ish hours with a maximum of 5, meaning they can answer wrong at most 5 times and fail a lesson, forcing them to do a recap practice lesson to earn a heart and then retry the lesson with only 1 heart or they're just done for the day.

    It's kind of pay to win.

    • Following backlash to statements that Duolingo will be AI-first, threatening jobs in the process, CEO Luis von Ahn has tried to walk back his statement.
    • Unfortunately, the CEO doesn’t walk back any of the key points he originally outlined, choosing instead to try, and fail to placate the maddening crowd.
    • Unfortunately the PR team may soon be replaced by AI as this latest statement has done anything but instil confidence in the firm’s users.
  • I think it should be added that people who pay premium get infinite lives, everyone else gets 1 life every 6-ish hours with a maximum of 5, meaning they can answer wrong at most 5 times and fail a lesson, forcing them to do a recap practice lesson to earn a heart and then retry the lesson with only 1 heart or they're just done for the day.

    It's kind of pay to win.

    I have so many bonus points, I just get 5 new hearts.
    I find the lack of grammer in the free version holding me back (possibly by design, so I'll finally pay for something).
    I think it's time to leave for me too (I didn't enjoy the gaming side and won't tolerate AI integration, even if it's free).

  • I'm a long time user of Duolingo and you earn plenty to give yourself the occasional streak freeze if you can't go two days without doing a lesson. It's not really as predatory as it sounds. It's nothing like pay to win type games.

    Fuck Duolingo for the AI shit though, don't mistake me for a Duolingo simp thinking their blameless. It's just that the monetization is not as predatory as it sounds.

    Nobody has ever learned a language by using Duolingo anyways. It's an app that lets you pretend your are doing something useful with your life instead of just slaving away at your job enriching others.

  • Tl;Dr: skip the apps unless they're part of a bigger in-person course. Prefer reputable sources like pimsleur and mango languages. If you have no rush, get graded readers and watch a lot of YouTube, podcasts, etc.

    Ok, so here are my two cents on learning languages and the whole category of learning apps. They are all flawed on some major way or another. But mostly it is about pacing learning progress.

    Teaching absolute beginners is easy. They know nothing, thus anything you show them will be progress. The actual difficulty when learning a language is finding appropriate material for your level of understanding, such that you understand most of it, but still find new things to learn. This is known as comprehensible input. The difficulty of most apps is that they are not capable of detecting then adapting study content accordingly to the student's progress. So they typically go way too slow, or sometimes too fast. Leaving the student frustrated and halting learning.

    Jumping with some nonzero knowledge into any app is also torture. It's known as the valley of despair. The beginner content is too boring and dull, now that you know a bit, but the intermediate level is way too much of a gap for you yet.

    My advice is to skip language learning apps. The "motivation via gamification hypothesis" is flawed and lacks nuance and understanding of behavioral science. People don't stop studying out of a lack of tokens, gems, streaks or achievement badges. It's because the content itself is uninteresting and bores them. Sure, the celebration and streaks work at first, but they usually lose effect by something known as reinforcement depreciation. The same stimulus shown too much or too frequently stops being gratifying. The biggest reward for learning a language is actually using it.

    A method that is known to work is to find graded readers. Watch a lot of YouTube, podcasts, social media, in the target language (avoid the language learning influencers) listen to native influencers speaking about topics you care about. Books work, in-person courses work, learning apps are good to start you up form absolute zero. But most learning happens on what you do in your everyday life. Using the language is the most effective way of becoming good at the language. Everything else is just excuses for using it.

    exactly. I also don't appreciate the app changing the icon to guilt trip me back into their odd choice of/irrelevant vocabulary that I am supposed to learn