Technology

Well, Duolingo CEO is a cunt.

That's pretty hilarious considering I've been using Duolingo (cracked apks) for years and these last couple of weeks the sentences it's been giving me are insane and weird, stupidly awkward things that no one would ever say IRL.

Airlearn isn't quite there as far as speech recognition but the lessons are a lot more natural and it actually tells you why and explains different parts of the culture around the language and why an idea might be expressed a certain way rather than how we're used to in English. An LLM could never.

I'm so close to letting my streak die because of this dude. Fuck him.

My library (and check yours, too!) has free access to Mango Languages, and what I have tried there has been nice. But they don't guilt trip you into doing lessons so you have to keep on top of it yourself.

Current LLMs aren't better teachers.

They might be in the future. But definitely not now.

We need a "thank you for sharing and fuck that!" Option, not just a like and dislike

Can we replace this guy with AI?

What a load of crap. Big tech is not the solution, it’s not even the question, it’s the problem.

"Try Super Duolingo now to avoid interruptions." Interruptions which are only there to promote Super Duolingo in the first place.

I ended my sub and deleted my account when they announced they’d be replacing their contract workers with AI.

Lingonaut looks promising. And I’ve been trying out Language Transfer for Spanish. I’ve learned more about how Spanish “works” in an hour of Language Transfer than I did with months of Duolingo. I’m smacking myself for wasting the time - though I do enjoy the gamification.

I am strongly pro-AI, but right now I would say it's not as good as a one-on-one experience with a knowledgeable human teacher. A human teacher can still see where you are struggling and help you work through the difficulty. Right now AI can belch out a correct answer, even write entire essays and computer programs, but can't as easily work with you one and one, read your body language, see the confusion in your eyes, and help you understand the thing you don't understand.

But it will happen. Eventually we will get AI-powered androids. I can't wait for the day I get my fembot, with a body built for loving and a head full of all the knowledge of the internet, able to teach me anything I want, help me with my studies, teach me new skills, and also cook and clean. Life will drastically change for the better for all us miserable antisocials, social rejects, and autists.

Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives

As someone who has actually been in a classroom and dealt with 20 kids—fuck off CEO with no real experience dealing with people.

Personalities, learning types, inequity, and so much more contribute to how people learn. A computer program cannot account for this. Also, what are you going to do when a kid doesn’t want to learn from a computer? Strap them down, force their hands on a keyboard, and shock them if they move or visit a program/site that isn’t what you want in that moment of teaching?

Good. Fucking. Luck.

P.S., Duolingo doesn’t do a good job of making you fluent in a language. It might give you basics of understanding, but you aren’t going to be chatting like any sort of native unless things have changed in the last 4 years or so since I tried it. Your platform is piss poor, and the juice leaking from skunk’s rotten anus has more relevance than you.

In near future all CEOs will be replaced by AI

you know, I still say punching people who say stupid stuff, would cut down the stupid stuff people say, by at least half...