Duolingo will replace contract workers with AI | The Verge

Duolingo is a tragedy. They really quickly realized that you don’t make money teaching things - you make it on retention and gamification.

Mango languages is great if your library has a subscription. I believe the US’s foreign service materials are also really good, if you want effective but boring.

Duolingo has enshittified so much over the last few years.

Even if I had the ability to become a millionaire tech founder, I don't think I'd want to because every "I want to make learning new languages free and easy for everyone" becomes a "I have to drive 3% more ad revenue this quarter by charting my users' every bowel movement".

I suspect the reality of being a rich tech bro is watching your adult self slowly consume your own childhood dreams, aspirations, and soul.

Let's also replace the customers by AI, that way the whole system will really be "AI first" and self-sufficient.

So if they're using a ChatGPT wrapper to teach me languages, why do I need Duolingo? Copilot is free.

I have found Duolingo much, much less useful for language learning than Language Transfer. The latter actually helps you learn to think in another language rather than memorize things (which is still useful, but not nearly as much).

Short if total immersion, I have found nothing better than LT.

Apparently they've already been incorporating it and it's very inaccurate. I've decided to stop using them and have switched to LingoDeer and MemRise. Really pleased with how much better they are.

If you decide to cancel your subscription and delete your account, they give a warning when deleting that says you need to cancel your subscription SEPARATELY. Just a heads up for anyone thinking of leaving like I did.

The AI slop is why I quit Duolingo after my 1500+ day streak.

“Duolingo will remain a company that cares deeply about its employees”

Except for the contract employees. Fuck those people.

In 2012, we bet on mobile. [...] That decision helped us win the 2013 iPhone App of the Year and unlocked the organic word-of-mouth growth that followed. Betting on mobile made all the difference. We’re making a similar call now, and this time the platform shift is AI.

I think this is some sort of fallacy, not sure which tho. Maybe a hasty generalization? "We bet on mobile twelve years ago and won, so if we bet on AI now we'll also win."

*It also seems they're using AI to code... those poor programmers will have to double check every single line it shits out because you know, it's a fucking AI. Yet another company succumbs to a CEOs emotional FOMO.

If you looking to replace dualingo, check with your local library, they may offer free access to different language learning apps. I was able to get Rosetta Stone for free using my library. And they also have access to Muzzy and Transparent language.

i cancelled my subscription and told them why

Duolingo uninstalled

Oh no! How will I pretend to learn a language now? Woe is me.

uninstalls Duolingo

leaves 1-star app review

My son is going to be sad that we don't use duo anymore

Welp, time to quit

They have been shilling max so hard, the practice tab now is hidden to make room for the Video Call tab (Max only) and a tab to subscribe to Max or upgrade your plan.

Probably won’t renew this year. I have a 1500+ day streak, but a good chunk of that is just doing a single quick practice lesson every day, the gamification got me and I haven’t learned much new stuff in probably a year.

I learned enough Italian to use it when I went on a two week trip in 2023, but the problem with Duo’s lessons is nothing is conversational. I would be able to say/ask something, understand the response, but then not really have the ability to keep the conversation going.

The differences in languages after so many years is also a bit disheartening, I had a friend show me all the tools available in their French course that I didn’t have, it made their Italian lessons look like vocab flash cards in comparison.

I am not a big LLM user, but I did try to use it as a conversation partner, which worked alright. I haven’t looked in a while, but my biggest issue was it would speak too fast and none of the available tools had a way to slow it down outside of telling it to add ellipses after each word.

There are at least some Duolingo courses that use AI voices exclusively and they are shit.

On the one hand, having an AI to talk to sounds like something that could be good. Getting a real person to talk to every user would be impossible. I just don’t think the technology is going to meet expectations any time soon.

Maybe time to boycott the service (which anyway was not that spectacular)

It’s just a tool like anything else. You can’t put the genie back in the lamp. Some jobs go away and new jobs are created. Look at every industrial revolution we’ve had in the past. AI technology is not to the point of replacing mankind.

Well, I prepaid for a year about 2 months ago. I'm gonna use it, but not renew. Fuck em

So is there any Duolingo alternative that teaches Esperanto and Indonesian?

For those who aren't leaving Duolingo, you can still get the paid features by creating a class and joining it. Or at least that's how it worked the last time I used it, which was a few years ago now.

Fuck their greed, I know that the bulk of their users wouldn't caffè if the CEO started shooting puppies on Main Square, but they can train their AI on Deez