At first I thought the "suggestions" for conversations are just predefined texts, but it seems they are also AI generated...
It just suggested to talk about: "How will you two spend my weekend?" :-D
Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI
91–100 of 354 posts
Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI
#92I am literally sitting on the floor at the train station trying to fix the mic/loading bug, so bear with me here .
Hint: Works if adblockers are disabled.
Not for me, tried this in latest Chrome and Firefox, disabling ublock and ghostery and still same behavior. Then once a bit later it worked with blockers on, but just first back & forth.
I think the author underestimated the interest of folks in such a product and it may be having HN 'kiss of death'
Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI
#93First, I’d like to say I really love this product. Thanks for making this. Second, where are the companies that are doing this type of thing for NPC dialogue in games. Imagine playing Mass Effect or Skyrim but where you get to ask whatever and the NPC responds with something that fits within the space of possible answers based on the prompt that defined their existence.
I think it's "the space of possible answers" that's the struggle. It's hard not to start with a barbarian in a tavern and end up with a bunny space pirate in argentinian highschool in the space of five sentences.
Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI
#94First, I’d like to say I really love this product. Thanks for making this. Second, where are the companies that are doing this type of thing for NPC dialogue in games. Imagine playing Mass Effect or Skyrim but where you get to ask whatever and the NPC responds with something that fits within the space of possible answers based on the prompt that defined their existence.
My feeling is companies don't invest in this because there isn't much return they expect from it. If gamers are more interested in playing with other humans than interacting with in-game characters, spending a lot on the AI to make it work might not make sense economically.
I'm no insider, but I imagine the same sort of reasoning is applied to when companies don't invest enough in opponent AI to make them continuously competitive: people want to play with other humans.
But I suspect this will change if it's marketed well. I will like to see that happen!
Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI
#95First, I’d like to say I really love this product. Thanks for making this. Second, where are the companies that are doing this type of thing for NPC dialogue in games. Imagine playing Mass Effect or Skyrim but where you get to ask whatever and the NPC responds with something that fits within the space of possible answers based on the prompt that defined their existence.
If it were free text, sounds like a thing I would use once for the novelty then forget about, because it's not an entertaining gameplay feature.
Maybe an AI could generate incidental dialog, things NPCs yell out in reaction to things around them, to keep it from always being from the same list of two or three reactions.
Just my two cents. I want to play a well written and fun game, not a chat bot.
Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI
#96This is so dope. Wanted something like this for a while. Was about to ask about tips for folks trying to ease into a base-line language level and then started fiddling with the Translator feature (which wasn't superquick to spot but very helpful now).
For the FAQ: How long have y'all been at it? Who is in the core team and what are your backgrounds? Would love to know the background story of the team. Just figured y'all are based out of ZH (ch) and SF (us) and noted the their.news submission but know nothing else. Super curious!
Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI
#97This would be awesome in VR. I took French in High School, and I forgot most of it, but after a week in France a lot of it was coming back. Immersion is a big deal in languages.
Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI
#98In my opinion the issue with most language programs is that they focus too early on speaking when listening should be the focus early on. Really speaking shouldn't even come into the picture until exposure of about a year and something like 15,000 hours of good comprehensible input.
Maybe you're thinking about 1500 hours instead of 15000. 15000 hours is approx. 5 years at 8 hours a day and you would reach "mastery" level in a lot of subjects (if studying deliberately).
Also, when you are reading you are most likely speaking with your inner voice. If you don't know the proper pronunciation, you may reinforce bad intonation/pronunciation habits. It happens to me when I'm reading a text with names that I'm too lazy to properly read. I just register the shape of the word with the first/last letters and length, then I pattern match in the rest of the text to know who we are talking about and that's it. More then once when talking with friends about books/articles/..., I could not tell the name of the person of interest. If it was written I would recognize it but I couldn't vocalize it.
Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI
#99Meanwhile there are millions of people in poor countries who would love to have a conversation with you in French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. over Skype.
Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI
#100This is so dope. Wanted something like this for a while. Was about to ask about tips for folks trying to ease into a base-line language level and then started fiddling with the Translator feature (which wasn't superquick to spot but very helpful now). For the FAQ: How long have y'all been at it? Who is in the core team and what are your backgrounds? Would love to know the background story of the team. Just figured y'…
Oh snap, when you sign up you get a learning track. This kicks DuoLingos ass. Like practical stuff (conversational aids) right away instead of useless practice sentences like "the monkey has a ball".
In all fairness, I bailed on Duo about a year ago after a full year of maintaining a streak and feeling I wasn't learning much.