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Big Layoff at Duolingo
- freetonik 3y agoIf the reason described is true (AI will replace human translators), then Duolingo’s often nonsensical example sentences in certain language courses will probably become even worse. Or perhaps it’s the other way around… but right now some language courses like Finnish are full of what feels like bad-AI generated texts. “Icelandic pony is a Viking” sort of stuff (I did not make that up)
- paxys 3y agoWhat is the "big layoff"? 10 people? A hundred? A thousand? What percentage of total employees is it? Is there any reason to believe that they were "replaced by AI" vs just being a standard layoff like for the rest of the tech industry? We need a better source for this than a random Reddit self post before bringing out the pitchforks.
- gjsman-1000 3y agoDuolingo really fell off the map for me for two reasons: 1. They moved away from community built language courses to ones built by “experts.” To be honest, I think the “expert” ones are much worse. The phrases seem more robotic and the structure… what structure is this? 2. We can discuss diversity another day - but what’s not welcome? Literally every screen having to be some new random combination of race, gender, disability, and cultural background. It’s so forced to the point it feels, for lack of a better word, like an indoctrination. I’m not against diversity - but badly handled stuff like this is how you build resentment. If we’re going to have diversity, why not primarily show people who actually speak the language?
- johnny22 3y agoThat bit about resentment sounds more like a "you" problem.
- kelseyfrog 3y agoI'm actually really interested in why people feel this way when in these situations. It's an app with cartoon-y characters and somehow when they don't match identity expectations, people seem to feel something about that? It seems so low stakes to me, I simply don't care about them, but some people seem to be really invested in these cartoons and that means I have something to learn about how brains work.
- gjsman-1000 3y agoMy main issue is that it’s scattershot diversity, not a thoughtful diversity. Scattershot diversity is what Hollywood films also are finding out causes anger. It’s when you take all the races, genders, etc., and just make sure there’s at least one of each in every movie. This also ironically cheapens diversity, because everyone doubts whether that character would have been there if it wasn’t for the race card. Compare this with targeted, meaningful diversity. A film studio might make 4 films: One set in 1500s England, one in modern Congo, one in Brazil, one in Mongolia. The British one is almost entirely white people, the Congo one almost entirely black people, etc. My point is: Vary up the locale, and keep the diversity accurate to the locale. If the locale is diversified enough, the diverse representation will follow with almost no complaints. It’s not like Europe has a monopoly on stories - I’m sure that every culture has stories untold that could be adapted into interesting material.
- Arainach 3y agoI have yet to meet anyone legitimately angry for the reasons you claim. I have met several who profess such a belief, but in every single case it is the presence of anyone not like them in the representation that they disagree with, not any actual thoughtfulness. These people always find a new goalpost to move to: "How dare they have a black person on this show?" "How dare they have a black person kiss a white person on this show?" "How dare they have a [X] on this show?" "How dare they have characters not speaking English on this show?", etc., etc. Not being pandered to 100% of the time does not mean that someone is being repressed. These are *auxiliary graphics in a phone app*. Not even UI elements. Is this really something you consider worth getting worked up about and resenting?
- Arainach 3y agoYou resent diverse representation in content associated with learning about other cultures?
- gjsman-1000 3y agoI’m angry because it doesn’t come off like respecting the culture. Take, for example, me learning Portuguese. I’d like the illustrations to look like people who live in Portugal, obviously. Same for if I’m learning Nepalese, or Swahili. Not a person of color who is queer and lives in LA. That’s fine for the English course. Not the Swahili course.
- Arainach 3y agoDo you believe that any of those countries are monocultures with exactly one skin tone and sexuality? Or that those languages are spoken in exactly one country?
- gjsman-1000 3y agoIf I’m a Hollywood studio, adapting a culture like the Congo that is more than 90% black, would you think: “Well, not everyone is black. So as long as we have an equal mix of black and white people, we’re fine?” Obviously, no.
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- 8organicbits 3y agoThis blog post suggests they are also trying to represent the learner. The way you look doesn't dictate the languages you can learn. https://blog.duolingo.com/lgbtq-representation-in-duolingo-stories-and-characters/ https://blog.duolingo.com/lgbtq-representation-in-duolingo-s...
- Arainach 3y ago>I’d like the illustrations to look like people who live in Portugal, obviously Also, what an example - are you aware that the VAST majority of Portugese speakers don't live in Portugal?
- palemoonale 3y ago> indoctrination That's the goal, isn't it? Normalize unicorn genders. And i fully agree with "If we’re going to have diversity, why not primarily show people who actually speak the language?"
- BossingAround 3y agoHonestly, Duolingo is so bad at teaching people a language that I think the language learning community, on the whole, would be better off without the app in business. Then again, teaching is not really their goal; rather, they'd sell you a language learning game.
- ainiriand 3y agoI practiced my German with Duolingo for some time and it it's absolutely useless for that purpose.
- jeffrallen 3y agoI did 3 months of Swahili, and stopped cold turkey when I realized that the gamification part of it kept me coming back, but somehow prevented me from learning anything. Would have been better to pass my time with Candy Crush.
- groggo 3y agoIt prevented you from learning anything? You really would have been better playing Candy Crush? Like other comments say, there's a lot of misguided hate towards Duolingo. The lack of original criticism is almost a meme. Duolingo is fun and addicting, and it 100% helps you learn vocab and grammar. You can argue that it's not sufficient to fully learn a language, but no single tool is. You need to mix it with other media, podcasts, music, immersion, and personal lessons. But it's a great starting point. You can argue that there's more efficient, non-gamified ways to learn the basic vocab and grammar, but for a lot of people that's too much effort or not as fun because it's not gamified.
- jeffrallen 3y agoI have learned other languages and I know the feeling of a successful study session. Duolingo is not it. It's a quick hit of, "ok, got the points for the day" or whatever, and the next day same thing. The words I learned went into some place in my brain related to getting points in video games, not into the language part of my brain.
- ugjka 3y agoPretty sure people are cancelling their subscriptions, money is tight
- mmaunder 3y agoTop comment suggests unionizing against AI. That would be like unionizing against the steam engine during the Industrial Revolution. Unions play (and played) an important role in improving working conditions, safety and pay, but they can’t prevent a sector from using core breakthrough technology without risking destroying the business. I’m stating the obvious but I think this kind of misdirected opposition to the use of AI will present teething problems during this revolution and may result in the disruption or destruction of many businesses. I think the most interesting and at risk area is Hollywood. Big opportunity if you’re an outsider.
- SamuelAdams 3y agoFrom the comments it sounds like Duolingo is still retaining some contractors to verify AI correctness. However I’m more concerned with the next 5 years. As AI inevitably gets more integrated in products and services, how will people know when AI is wrong? My biggest fear is that AI will make us all dumber because people assume the computer is right. I see this already with some end users of the software I write. I know my programs have bugs, sometimes they are wrong. But the average user believes it to be true because it is on the screen. For some reason that is an authority. Maybe companies who use AI in their producers should be legally required to retain subject matter experts to verify correctness. Maybe AI should be banned from processing queries about health, or other sensitive fields?
- catchnear4321 3y ago> As AI inevitably gets more integrated in products and services, how will people know when AI is wrong? if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? if a language model returns an inaccurate response and no one is left that knows the difference, is the response now valid?
- eddd-ddde 3y agoI guess for some things is valid for others not so much. Language? Sure, vocabulary and grammar changes. Math? not so sure.
- catchnear4321 3y agomath, absolutely. the answer does not need to be completely wrong, just outside of safe tolerances.
- numpad0 3y agoPeople on pushing side already don’t care about quality of translations. Even Microsoft Windows has lots of parallel movements is creating unnecessarily singular batch of detection, that do make sense when translated back into English. That’s indeed a bit problematic, I guess we’ll see if they finally feel it.
- 8organicbits 3y agoI've enjoyed Duolingo and paid for a while. One takeaway I have is that it's not really a good way to learn languages. It's too formulaic. People complain that they can't understand actual conversation despite years of consistent duo practice. It is fun and addicting though.
- iforgotpassword 3y agoIt should be one building block when learning a language. as you said, the gamification works just as well as achievements etc. in video games to keep you going, but add whatever interests you to the mix. like music, tv shows, try to talk to people (not always possible of course), memorize short poems and say them out loud, whatever you can come up with.
- realusername 3y agoI've progressed way faster after I stopped using it. Duolingo is tricking you into thinking you are making progress with all those virtual trophies whereas you aren't making much progress in reality. At some point you just connect to keep the streak going which take a higher priority than the language journey itself ironically. And then there's a big variation of quality as well, the French and Spanish courses just aren't the same as the Vietnamese one.
- apwell23 3y ago> I've progressed way faster after I stopped using it. What did you do instead?
- realusername 3y agoIt's going to be very weird for HN but I'm learning using Tiktok + a flashcard app + a dictionary. You can probably do the same thing with YouTube Shorts. There's a lot of high quality and very short films on basic daily subjects and subtitled on this app. It's the perfect material you need as a beginner. At the beginning I was watching one 3 minute video per hour and now I just watch it close to normal speed, progress isn't linear. Short subtitled videos is the ideal material because you are working on your spoken and written comprehension in the same time. I use the dictionary app on the new words I don't know about and input them into the flashcard app. I went from close to nothing to around B1 in one year and half. Whereas with Duolingo I never even reached A2 in three years. My take with language learning is that there's no magic method, you are going to be tired and consistency beats everything, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
- dave4420 3y agoI wish they’d use AI to translate the English language sentences into different dialects of English. It’s hard enough learning German without having to do it via American English. Just going automatically down the route of “cut costs” speaks to a lack of imagination.
- throwaway019254 3y agoAre you looking for British English instead?
- dave4420 3y agoYes. Are you going to tell me that the option for British English has been there all along, and I just couldn’t find it?
- wendyshu 3y agoIf you're learning languages you might as well learn American English
- bun_terminator 3y agoAccording to duolingos website, they have "700+ employees"
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y agoI studied english in a "traditional" English school back in Italy: study grammar, do homeworks etc. However my listening and speaking was thanks to playing mmorpg (final fantasy xiv). Became friend with a Mexican guy and we talked for hours and hours for many days. When I was trying to immigrate into Canada I had to take an English test (I already took a similar one) and I knew my speaking and listening skills were way below my writing and reading skills. This time after the test my listening and speaking skills were higher than my writing, and all the scores were really high. Very satisfying I must say.
- fxd123 3y agoLayoff of contractors, not employees.
- smeggysmeg 3y agoIt sounds like they're telling us their product has no value. If AI can reliably perform language translation, then why would anyone bother learning a language? Checkmate, Duolingo.