Neat. Here’s how you can delete your account: https://www.duolingo.com/help/delete-my-account-and-data
Perfect. Thank you.
Just in time for spring cleaning. Thanks.
Yay thanks
Can I delete my account if I never made an account in the first pace?
I’m wondering which of these 2 options is true for the chief techbro who came up with this:
- They are genuinely clueless, and have never used ChatGPT for more than 5 minutes
- They know the limitations of LLMs well, but they want to ride the AI hype to inflate their company value (and maybe cut some costs by downsizing)
They believe in infinite growth. They think LLMs are going to get reliable fast. LLMs have probably played a direct role in convincing them of that
Yep they’re paying lip service to the employees but this message is 100% to potential investors looking to bet on the AI wave.
it being an email from their CEO is basically all the evidence needed, CEOs don’t say anything that isn’t somehow meant to increase profits.
I was gonna say language learning is actually one of the few AI might be useful for, but they’re not talking about making their users learn with a little AI translator having a random conversation with them; they’re replacing their workforce with AI.
Fuck. I was considering using Duo once I finish school to give myself some more options to flee the US as we dive deeper into nazism. Any good alternatives?
The problem with current AI text generation is that it can be wrong, which is bad if you are trusting it with giving correct information to learn
Deepl, even though its made for translating, it is often wrong
Language Transfer, lingodeer
I know I’m going to sound like a stock Marxist from the 1930s, but: AI is a means of production and therefore should be collectivized.
the devs appropriated the models from the masses.
Anki is great for flashcards with lots of community generated decks for free download:
As someone learning Japanese
There’s no fucking way AI would be able to assist in learning a second language
Any good alternatives?
Join a class. These apps are a waste of time.
They already have AI driven conversations if you pay.
Which is about the extent AI could benefit a service like Duolingo. Gutting their workforce isn’t going to make it any better.
Find a personal tutor social media. Pay them money. It’s easier than it ever has been
i mean the way humans are made to learn languages is just simple immersion, consume media in the target language and your brain will figure it out.
the one thing to keep in mind is that you don’t want subtitles, because then you won’t actually be paying attention to the target language. If you can stomach it then children’s media is great because it’s specifically made to be simple and teach children the language.
Language Transfer on SoundCloud or Busuu if you want more of an app / exercises experience.
What language are you trying to learn?
Ever since their content is being created or at least sub crrated by AI the quality has gone down noticeable, ive seen so many incorrect sentences which is shit when trying to learn a language. And if i, as a beginner learner can figure out wrong sentences what the actual fuck is ai doing?
AI could make Duolingo better because it doesn’t teach a language in its current state. It could explain to the user why their answer is wrong and offer exercises. But instead of doing that, they simply replace employees to save money? What a garbage company. It’s a shame their app is so popular. It gives people nothing but a false sense of learning.
It could explain to the user why their answer is wrong
FWIW that feature has existed in the premium version for about a year or so
I abandoned Duolingo 6 months ago. If that’s true, they failed to advertise that to me. In any case, with modern llms you don’t need Duolingo for that. You can ask them. You can copy-paste any article on a subject that interests you, and ask an llm to simplify it to your A1-A2 level. You can ask it to generate exercises, to explain things. Flashcards? Please, Anki is free.
When I got rid of Duo, it had removed the crowd sourced explanations and only had the super-premium support in select countries, so even if I wanted to subscribe to it, as a non-American, I couldn’t.
Mind you, I didn’t want the AI-based version because yeah. I could use Anki + ChatGPT for free.
For the first time ever, teaching as well as the best human tutors is within our reach.
No it fucking isn’t. The video calls are awful and don’t do anything to help you learn why what you said is wrong. Lilly just acts confused and ignores what you said. And in their normal explanations it just assumes why you didn’t know something, gives an answer for what it guessed, and doesn’t do anything else. The old explanations were much better than the new garbage they offer.
That’s pretty on point for the kind of stereotypical girl lily is supposed to be.
Opened the comments because I got stuck at this line for a bit. When I got to this part my brain added in commas and it took me a little because even though “teaching, as well as the best human tutors, is within our reach” doesn’t really make sense, it still seems less nonsensical than without the commas.
This email makes no sense.
Let me paraphrase them:
We bet on mobile and won big. AI is great. AI tutors are a thing.
Therefore we’ll get AI to understand our codebase and get it to fo stuff people did before
This isn’t “betting on” AI. This is outsourcing to AI.
You can be an AI company (theoretically) - have people make AI models that are then deployed. Note the lack of recursively, made-by-AI-for-AI products and services.
Tbh, Duolingo was always a gimmick. It doesn’t teach you a language. It teaches you small snippets of 5-10 words each with little to no grammar. It’s repetitive and boring. It was that way before the lives they said they’d never add.
They lost me as a user when they rolled out lives.
Now, I hope they lose someone else.
Duolingo has potential. But learning a language always required a large time investmant, and it always will.
I assume its lessons will only get worse than they already are.
Them: this is not about replacing employees with AI
they then proceed to explain how they will give new work to AI first instead of hiring people
Thankfully this shit service has never seen a cent from me (and I know 2 languages), and I’ll definitely keep it this way…
It was a good app ten years ago when you could use it as much as you wanted for a few short ads. Now its an ad-ridden mtxfest.
that’s the really depressing part, they took something that could have kind of revolutionized the world (imagine everyone having easy access to learning the major languages), and just snapped its neck like a defenseless kitten
Humans-last
Duolingo has been using AI for a bit at least for their content, and it sucks
I hate Duolingo and this LinkedIn Lunacy just strenghtens my (somewhat unpopular) view.
Your view is not unpopular.
Well, fortunately
Honestly I was thinking of removing duo before this. It’s just glorified flash cards making you memorize words associations instead of getting into how thimgs work. I still haven’t gotten the rules of how verb conjugation works in Italian. Just gonna read the books I got.
That’s a bad description of it, though. There exist flash card apps, such as Anki and Memrise, and Duolingo has many other features. Grammar, reading, speaking, those are all built-in.
Of course some people prefer to learn grammar using the old-fashioned “grammar translation” method, and you are free to do so if you want to, but on average the speed of that method is slow.
Certainly it’s a good idea to have at least two study materials, which could include Duolingo, or not, according to personal preference.
You’re a bad description of it. >:E
I was using Khan Academy when they went to AI. Suddenly my answers were being marked as incorrect, even though they matched the “correct” answer presented. Or they were marked incorrect becuase I used pi, when it said I could answer in terms of pi.
I’m expecting the same to happen here.
deleted by creator
I haven’t used the app for a while, but I still have it installed. The delete account button doesn’t work, and neither does the feedback button. Cool.
Try a VPN to any EU country. I find that platforms can get really cooperative really fast when you wanna delete your account and they think GDPR applies
Unless you’re already in the EU in which case you could try “Mine” (saymine.com) although it’s been a minute and the AI stuff on their site does by fill me.with confidence
Thanks for the heads up. Deleted my account and unistalled their app.
