5 ms·

It's not stinginess, it's value. If an LLM can teach me a language, why wouldn't I go straight to the source and use GPT or Claude and customize it to my exact

It's not stinginess, it's value. If an LLM can teach me a language, why wouldn't I go straight to the source and use GPT or Claude and customize it to my exact needs. I feel like so many AI products these days won't be around a few years from now once more people find out that all their doing is providing a slightly different UI to what you can get directly from OAI, Anthropic, Google for cheaper and better and more tailored to you.

whyowhy3484939 1y ago
LLMs cannot "teach you a language". They make for cool demos to show off. They can perhaps be a building block of a proper language learning experience. Then again, the only languages I actually learned - besides my mother tongue - to the point of being able to do things were English and Latin and both were very much acquired offline. I have plenty of experience with language learning apps and I'm not convinced tech is the solution or even part of the solution.
- adocomplete 1y ago
  I think the best way to learn a language is offline through actual human interaction. I've used Duolingo in the past (and other apps) and quickly lost interest, it's a fun app, but I feel like you don't learn from it. If I had to learn a new language today, I'm confident I could make good progress with GPT or Gemini, but tailoring it to how I learn.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- johnisgood 1y ago
  Using it and being surrounded by people writing and/or speaking the language is probably the right way to learn a language. That is how I learned Polish which is really difficult. I joined a community, and 2 years later, my Polish was quite good! YMMV. After 4 weeks I also learned Spanish enough to maintain casual conversations just from trying to talk to someone online who did not speak English. I am rusty now, however, because I do not speak it with anyone, nor do I see or hear Spanish anywhere. Spanish is way easier, IMO, in comparison to Polish. Thoughts?
  - whyowhy3484939 1y ago
    > Thoughts? On what? If I understand you correctly you learned through people and practice and community.
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      On my method of learning a new language. It worked for me, and I found it to be the best way to learn a new language. I tried Duolingo but I got nowhere useful that way.
      - whyowhy3484939 1y ago
        Oh, right. I think whatever works best for your personality but in general doing some exercises and/or interacting with people has been working for a couple .. ten thousands years at least. Hard to go wrong. I never heard someone make the believable claim that they interacted with too many people and it hampered their language learning. My take is that basically anything can be made to work if you are properly motivated. Tech is - at best - a secondary concern.
- nchmy 1y ago
  False. Could I ask ChatGPT to just "teach me spanish"? Surely not. But if you've got even a slight idea of what to do (learn present tense and vocab, then progressive, future and past, then some conditional, hypothetical etc...), it can be an absolutely incredible tutor. I started using it when i was already at a pretty high level, but I'm quite certain that it would have been excellent from the very beginning. It translates, gives varied examples, explains syntax, compares verb tenses and conjugation and more.
  - whyowhy3484939 1y ago
    False. Those are all things books will give and people as well and often better. Can it be a tutor? Sure, if you squint. But "tutoring" you on some question you have is not the same as "learning a language".
    - nchmy 1y ago
      lol
kbelder 1y ago
Plus, being stingy even if you have money benefits those who don't have money. It's why I buy the $0.50 macaroni and cheese instead of the $1.69 version. I don't really care; either would be fine. But I don't want companies to succeed in charging more. I want them to desperately need to cut their selling price in order to succeed. People buying expensive products (assuming they aren't truly better) are helping screw over poor people. Just slightly.
- cyanydeez 1y ago
  i guess, but then youre not integrating the externalized costs of the cheaper food.
- 90s_dev 1y ago
  The $.50 version is barely food. The $1.69 is not much better, and still very unhealthy for you. Have ground beef and a fiber rich low calorie food like brocoli or whole wheat whole grain noodles or something. Anyway you're not really helping the poor in practice when you do this. Corporations aren't hurting because one guy or even a dozen he inspires through HN stop buying a few boxes of kraft dinner. If more people did it, and it became a movement, like buying clothes from the thrift store is becoming, then clothiers will shift business focus. Which to some extent they seem to have done over the past 20 years. But only slightly.
  - fao_ 1y ago
    I don't agree with the person above you in as much as the way they are doing it is very individualist "vote with your wallet", and yes, you're right that it's very ineffective. The more effective way is to form a group, call it a "club" or whatever, that does it. The group can then advertise to other people and get more people to join the club. Eventually, it becomes large enough to gain political power. This is called "unionizing" — people with a shared interest joining together for a common goal. Eventually you get large enough to hold the corporations over a barrel, either through strikes or a mass disinterest in buying products, etc. The only reason we have a 40-hour work week is because of unionizing, it's a very, very effective tactic that is severely underutilized.
dotancohen 1y ago
> If an LLM can teach me a language, why wouldn't I go straight to the source and use GPT or Claude and customize it to my exact needs. Because the "customize it" part is not trivial. That is the value add for most people who can not do that customisation themselves. That said, I've found LLMs to be terrific if the goal is to learn the rules of language's grammar. But to actually learn to speak the language, find HelloTalk to be best, beaten by nothing other than actually sitting down with a native speaker.
- mvdtnz 1y ago
  It is actually quite trivial.
  - dotancohen 1y ago
    And Dropbox is just rsync and a server.
    - mvdtnz 1y ago
      Weird analogy. Not even close.
- slt2021 1y ago
  someone will leak the system prompt for Duolingo and thats it - all their moat is just a single git leak away. you cannot build a moat with LLMs, so there is no value in using any service that is wrapper around the chatpgt
  - dotancohen 1y ago
    Duolingo does not need a moat. They are already an established incumbent and have market inertia on their side. They can afford to experiment and make mistakes, and then to backtrack those mistakes. For what it's worth, I also stopped using Duolingo when the human forums closed. I often found as much value in the forums as in the actual course. And like GP, the hardest part was relinquishing my nearly 1000 day streak.
  - 1y ago

whyowhy3484939 1y ago

LLMs cannot "teach you a language". They make for cool demos to show off. They can perhaps be a building block of a proper language learning experience. Then again, the only languages I actually learned - besides my mother tongue - to the point of being able to do things were English and Latin and both were very much acquired offline. I have plenty of experience with language learning apps and I'm not convinced tech is the solution or even part of the solution.

adocomplete 1y ago
I think the best way to learn a language is offline through actual human interaction. I've used Duolingo in the past (and other apps) and quickly lost interest, it's a fun app, but I feel like you don't learn from it. If I had to learn a new language today, I'm confident I could make good progress with GPT or Gemini, but tailoring it to how I learn.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
johnisgood 1y ago
Using it and being surrounded by people writing and/or speaking the language is probably the right way to learn a language. That is how I learned Polish which is really difficult. I joined a community, and 2 years later, my Polish was quite good! YMMV. After 4 weeks I also learned Spanish enough to maintain casual conversations just from trying to talk to someone online who did not speak English. I am rusty now, however, because I do not speak it with anyone, nor do I see or hear Spanish anywhere. Spanish is way easier, IMO, in comparison to Polish. Thoughts?
- whyowhy3484939 1y ago
  > Thoughts? On what? If I understand you correctly you learned through people and practice and community.
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    On my method of learning a new language. It worked for me, and I found it to be the best way to learn a new language. I tried Duolingo but I got nowhere useful that way.
    - whyowhy3484939 1y ago
      Oh, right. I think whatever works best for your personality but in general doing some exercises and/or interacting with people has been working for a couple .. ten thousands years at least. Hard to go wrong. I never heard someone make the believable claim that they interacted with too many people and it hampered their language learning. My take is that basically anything can be made to work if you are properly motivated. Tech is - at best - a secondary concern.
nchmy 1y ago
False. Could I ask ChatGPT to just "teach me spanish"? Surely not. But if you've got even a slight idea of what to do (learn present tense and vocab, then progressive, future and past, then some conditional, hypothetical etc...), it can be an absolutely incredible tutor. I started using it when i was already at a pretty high level, but I'm quite certain that it would have been excellent from the very beginning. It translates, gives varied examples, explains syntax, compares verb tenses and conjugation and more.
- whyowhy3484939 1y ago
  False. Those are all things books will give and people as well and often better. Can it be a tutor? Sure, if you squint. But "tutoring" you on some question you have is not the same as "learning a language".
  - nchmy 1y ago
    lol

kbelder 1y ago

Plus, being stingy even if you have money benefits those who don't have money. It's why I buy the $0.50 macaroni and cheese instead of the $1.69 version. I don't really care; either would be fine. But I don't want companies to succeed in charging more. I want them to desperately need to cut their selling price in order to succeed. People buying expensive products (assuming they aren't truly better) are helping screw over poor people. Just slightly.

cyanydeez 1y ago
i guess, but then youre not integrating the externalized costs of the cheaper food.
90s_dev 1y ago
The $.50 version is barely food. The $1.69 is not much better, and still very unhealthy for you. Have ground beef and a fiber rich low calorie food like brocoli or whole wheat whole grain noodles or something. Anyway you're not really helping the poor in practice when you do this. Corporations aren't hurting because one guy or even a dozen he inspires through HN stop buying a few boxes of kraft dinner. If more people did it, and it became a movement, like buying clothes from the thrift store is becoming, then clothiers will shift business focus. Which to some extent they seem to have done over the past 20 years. But only slightly.
- fao_ 1y ago
  I don't agree with the person above you in as much as the way they are doing it is very individualist "vote with your wallet", and yes, you're right that it's very ineffective. The more effective way is to form a group, call it a "club" or whatever, that does it. The group can then advertise to other people and get more people to join the club. Eventually, it becomes large enough to gain political power. This is called "unionizing" — people with a shared interest joining together for a common goal. Eventually you get large enough to hold the corporations over a barrel, either through strikes or a mass disinterest in buying products, etc. The only reason we have a 40-hour work week is because of unionizing, it's a very, very effective tactic that is severely underutilized.

dotancohen 1y ago

> If an LLM can teach me a language, why wouldn't I go straight to the source and use GPT or Claude and customize it to my exact needs. Because the "customize it" part is not trivial. That is the value add for most people who can not do that customisation themselves. That said, I've found LLMs to be terrific if the goal is to learn the rules of language's grammar. But to actually learn to speak the language, find HelloTalk to be best, beaten by nothing other than actually sitting down with a native speaker.

mvdtnz 1y ago
It is actually quite trivial.
- dotancohen 1y ago
  And Dropbox is just rsync and a server.
  - mvdtnz 1y ago
    Weird analogy. Not even close.
slt2021 1y ago
someone will leak the system prompt for Duolingo and thats it - all their moat is just a single git leak away. you cannot build a moat with LLMs, so there is no value in using any service that is wrapper around the chatpgt
- dotancohen 1y ago
  Duolingo does not need a moat. They are already an established incumbent and have market inertia on their side. They can afford to experiment and make mistakes, and then to backtrack those mistakes. For what it's worth, I also stopped using Duolingo when the human forums closed. I often found as much value in the forums as in the actual course. And like GP, the hardest part was relinquishing my nearly 1000 day streak.
- 1y ago