In December 2023 they laid off a huge percentage of their translation teams, replacing them with ai and having the remaining members review the ai translations to make sure the translations are “acceptable” (Note how they use the world acceptable and not accurate)
The rate of mispronounced words (mostly on/kun substitutions in Japanese) has gone dramatically up in my lessons, and I’m willing to bet this is why.
Last year, The New Yorker published an interview of Luis von Ahn, founder of Duolingo. Guys, this is nothing new: He is completely okay with replacing actual teachers with AI. As an educator myself, I found the interview incredibly infuriating. These were some of his responses:
Some teachers are good, but the vast majority are not all that great. [Humans]…are just hard to deal with. You need a lot of human tutors, and they’re kind of hard to use, and we can’t get them for free. And I really want people to be able to learn for free.
Honestly, what the fuck was that? Human tutors are “hard to use”? What is it with the mega wealthy tech bros seeing ordinary humans as a commodity? And him trying to pretend that he cares about education by stating that he wants people to be “able to learn for free”? Boy hasn’t heard of a library in his life? I’m surprised that he had the audacity (or delusion?) to even say that on a big publication.
There’s more, btw.
I’m like, O.K., well, a small number of people are out of a job, but suddenly we can teach everybody better. It’s not like I feel great about this, but I think it’s better to be able to teach all of humanity cheaply, right?
Teachers make only a fraction of what he earns, and he is so eager to rob us of our livelihood in the false name of pushing humanity forward with “free” education. He’s only fooling himself.
I used to love Duolingo. I have had my account for nearly seven years now, but it has continually downgraded ever since, with its latest UI being so anti-neurodivergent. I quit after reaching an achievement, and I won’t be coming back. I’m going to miss it, though.
Anyway, if y'all have any good recos for language learning apps that don’t require paid subscriptions in order to continue learning, please share!
