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Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

blog.duolingo.com

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Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#181

Post by aleph_minus_one »

skeaker wrote: post #94
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #86

Ugh. You can just feel the management layers in this. Management wants to do something with AI. It's so hot right now. Your product guy got an idea for a cool new feature. Tests show that users actually like it. It's helpful. Great. But now you need to explain how you made Duolingo money. First idea, your product has a paid tier, add it as a feature to the paid tier too boost paid user retention and new signups. Grea…

I mean, sure, that's more or less how a company operates. You make a new product, you charge for it, you advertise it. What's the big issue? This all seems pretty standard.

> You make a new product, you charge for it, you advertise it. What's the big issue?

The issue is: from beginning on and for a long time Duolingo advertised with "Learn a language for free. Forever." :-(

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#184

Post by comex »

simonw wrote: post #178
__bjoernd wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it give the right information or just some that sounds reasonable to you?

I'm asking pretty basic questions - "Why moven there and not mover?" kind of level - and the responses are obviously correct to me.

I recently asked GPT-3.5 ChatGPT to explain the grammar of a Japanese sentence using an obscure informal verb form, and it gave an answer that was obviously wrong. I just tried again with GPT-4, and it gave an answer that was more plausible, but which is almost certainly also wrong, because it contradicts the much-more-convincing Stack Exchange answer I had previously found via Google. (I only asked ChatGPT the question as a test.)

So, it can be helpful for basic questions, but there are limits. The harder the question is, the more likely it is to get the answer wrong, and the harder it is for the user to identify when it’s done so.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#185

Post by jake_morrison »

I have been using Duolingo for years.

I find that you can't really learn anything, you can only practice something you already know. You won't learn grammar, it's only useful for sentence translation drills. And those drills are artificial, e.g. one sentence at a time, not using context, which is a big part of Japanese. It also has problems with characters with multiple readings (many). It often introduces a character and drills pronunciation before introducing the meaning.

While I have gotten use out of it for sentence translation practice in addition to other studies, I likely won't renew. I would recommend using another tool, e.g. LingoDeer.

I don't see this new feature as being useful. Instead of using ML to try to explain what I got wrong, how about just paying someone to write some text to explain the sentence?

Their sentences are already a bit odd. Now I am supposed to learn to talk like an AI? That's very cyberpunk. Sigh.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#186

Post by DangitBobby »

recuter wrote: post #177
Kailhus wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon?

After just 5 hours on a Duolingo Max I have become fluent at useful everyday language needs, behold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grA5XmBRC6g

Say what you mean instead of hiding behind low-effort sarcasm.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#187

Post by d23 »

skeaker wrote: post #94
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #86

Ugh. You can just feel the management layers in this. Management wants to do something with AI. It's so hot right now. Your product guy got an idea for a cool new feature. Tests show that users actually like it. It's helpful. Great. But now you need to explain how you made Duolingo money. First idea, your product has a paid tier, add it as a feature to the paid tier too boost paid user retention and new signups. Grea…

I mean, sure, that's more or less how a company operates. You make a new product, you charge for it, you advertise it. What's the big issue? This all seems pretty standard.

Agreed. The main two questions, in my mind: is this actually a good product experience, and are they charging a fair price.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#188

Post by pmoriarty »

NoPicklez wrote: post #176
skeaker wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sure, that's more or less how a company operates. You make a new product, you charge for it, you advertise it. What's the big issue? This all seems pretty standard.

How dare you try to make money to pay your employees

Their motivation to make money is to pay their employees?

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#189

Post by contr-error »

lock-the-spock wrote: post #93
thewebcount wrote: post #79

I have severely mixed feelings about Duolingo. I can't imagine paying more than I already do for the "Super" option. If you're trying to learn Spanish or French, it seems like a pretty full-featured app. Unfortunately, I'm trying to learn Greek and every aspect of it is sub-par compared to other languages. It doesn't even read you questions correctly. (It uses flat intonation as if it's saying a statement.) There are…

Not relevant to the discussion but possibly for you: I discovered this 100% free no-signup audio-only course for Greek through a previous HN post. Amazing approach (like Michel Thomas but more charming and modern and free!): https://www.languagetransfer.org/about Of all the language apps I used Duolingo has by far been the least useful. I've spent hundreds of hours but took barely anything away (for FR, ES) If you mu…

+1 for language transfer, great execution of a great method.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#190

Post by hndamien »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #181
skeaker wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sure, that's more or less how a company operates. You make a new product, you charge for it, you advertise it. What's the big issue? This all seems pretty standard.

> You make a new product, you charge for it, you advertise it. What's the big issue? The issue is: from beginning on and for a long time Duolingo advertised with "Learn a language for free. Forever." :-(

You can still learn a language for free with Duo Lingo.
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