Duolingo jumps aboard the 'AI-first' train, will phase out contractors Duolingo has become the latest tech outfit to attempt to declare itself 'AI-first,' with CEO Luis von Ahn telling staff the biz hopes to gradually phase out contractors for work neural networks can take over. In the letter, which Duolingo shared on LinkedIn, von Ahn told employees the language-learning outfit would "gradually …
There are probably layers of executives that could successfully be replaced by AI, and just imagine the savings! And since both are amoral, soulless, lacking in empathy, not capable of true thought or any creativity whatsoever, the only difference we'd notice is that machines could be programmed with an actual set of rules to follow even if they lack in proper ethics.
Perhaps it's time for major shareholders everywhere to get behind this move, since it'll mean more money for them.
Yeah. My current workplace is probably in danger of accumulating those with all of the growth we've had in the past few years. But what we really need is a few more manglers, I mean managers closer to the trenches, and even a couple more minions capable of passing the background checks to do my job (mostly sleeping through my shift, but for contractual reasons need people with squeaky clean recent records).
not-contractor> Now make "Submit" button centred.
AI> Here I have updated your code and button is now centred.
not-contractor> You have centred all buttons! Please revert and try again, this time focus on "Submit" button only!
AI> Ok as requested, I have reverted the changes and now the "Submit" button is focused.
not-contrator> Where is my form? Why did you delete everything and only left the "Submit" button?
AI> This is what you asked me to do. I have reverted the changes and focused the "Submit" button by adding ".button-focused" style. Do you want me to help with anything else?
I stopped my duolingo subscription because it took up too much of my time and was not actually helping me learn Finnish ( unless the topic of conversation was parakeets. Duolingo Finnish has lots of sentences involving parakeets)
But using AI ?
A moose once but my sister.
We apologise for the temporary drop in quality. The people who hired the AI have been sacked.
Moosebites can be quite nasty.
We apologise again, all staff that is not AI has now also been sacked.
Bloody wankers
I cancelled mine for other reasons. I'd still like to get back into practice with Spanish, since even in California,[1] and properly learning German[2], but yeah. A lot of the app seemed to not cover important things, and expect that you knew odd bits of grammar that suddenly started popping up for the first time.
[1] I haven't used it in years beyond giving directions to strangers.
[2] Even fewer opportunities to properly practice.
I have to admit to a certain fascination with language learning: even with four years total immersion in German, I am still unable fully to express myself with anything like my fluency in English, nor to follow a complex program - say, a detailed news item or a political discussion - on the TV or radio.
I note the difference between the Duolingo course (it's not English->German, it's American->German and they're _not_ the same) and tutored classes: the first has you learning long lists of answers mostly by wrote with zero feedback except 'right' or 'wrong' (for example, when I did it, a single incorrect letter in an answer (including using a correct English spelling rather than the American) would make it wrong with no explanation); the second teaches you not German but German grammar... fine for an academic but not so good for someone who just wants a pound of tomatoes or to know who's Chancellor this week.
Surely there must be a half-way house - German As She Is Spoke? - that I have not yet discovered. Duolingo certainly isn't it; in its beginnings, when they _promised_ there would be no adverts nor charges (hah!) it wasn't too bad, but once they started that idiotic 'gamifying' of the courses it became silly - and very irritating.
My uni used to do "Holiday <language>" which taught you words and phrases you could use, as well as the <language> ntensive which taught you instead to think in the chosen language so rather than trying to convert English to <language> you were learning the grammar rules and after some examples, asked to formulate a different phrase, worked really well. We had a Spanish tutor whose folks left during the Spanish civil war and a another tutor from Mexico (and yes she definitely had the hot temper downpat, lovely lady....just not wise to get on her bad side or irk her on bad days )
Mr. von Ahn writes of (fake) AI as if there was some race to be won, with a big trophy, a big bottle of champaigne, and tons of money to be awarded to the "winner".
Instead, he's climbing onto yet another fad train.
That fad train is much-less like the love train and much-more like the train in Jethro Tull's Locomotive Breath:
"Charley stole the handle, and train it won't stop, no.
No way to slow down."
A company with a stated goal of replacing humans with machines will find it hard to find the people they need. How many will want to take a job where one Friday, they're handed an envelope with their last pay, severance and the time for the exit meeting with a note to leave their badge and laptop with security on the way out (all delivered via a robot).
People will take those jobs. People at the hardware store always try to shunt me to the self-checkout. As I always wind up needing somebody to come over to sort something out, I just use the staffed checkout. I've asked why these employees are chivvying people to the machines that are meant to be replacing them. They do because they are told to. It like your company outsourcing your job or hiring a freshout at half salary to replace you and wanting you to train them up before your last day.
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