Thinking About Trying Duolingo? Don't.
The app Duolingo is a popular language-learning app , and especially popular among brand-spanking new language students. It’s real hook for beginners is its gaming element. Students can compete in vocabulary contests with other players, family members or friends learning together.
As resident in Mexico, many new expats use Duolingo as their first tool to learning Spanish. The app has come to be known for the quirky, playful “personality” of its content, content created by enthusiastic human beings who enjoy creating that content.
That’s about to change. As reported by Brian Merchant, author of the highly-readable technology blog Blood in the Machine. Duolingo’s president Micha Kaufman recently annouced to his company employees in a text that most of them would be replaced by A.I.
Luis von Ahn, the billionaire CEO of Duolingo announced that the company is going AI first [to hell what you as customers might want]. Over 100 employees have already been let go. The wording of Kaufman’s text especially rankles. It’s A.I., not him, “comng for their jobs” he says. There’s apparently simply nothing he can do about it. He’s powerless.
As if we as consumers aren’t already asailed with enough A.I. slop on social platforms. At least these social platforms are free for me to use, other than having to spending more precious time sifting through the AI swamp on Youtube and Instagram to get content that’s created not generated. At least I didn’t pay for this unpleasant A.I. experience as many small businesses are being hounded to do.
Now you may accuse me of being the type of person who would have insisted my books be created by monks when the printing press was invented. A key difference is the printing press made books more affordable for people. As consumers we’ll pay the same for soul less A.I. generated products as we did for them when some inspiration was involved.
According to Blood in the Machine, 61% of businesses surveyed said they did not receive the return on their investment in A.I tools. As consumers of products like Duolingo, you will be paying for the privilege of providing the input necessary to train their tool (and let even more people go).
In the relentless pursuit of ROI for the billions of dollars investors have sunk into A.I. companies, small business owners are being hounded incessantly to serve as trainers/guinea pigs for yet another technological tool not ready for prime time. (Early adopters are such suckers). The A.I. companies aren’t making money and their desperation is showing all across the internet.
Make no mistake, A.I is only to cut employee costs and squeeze out more profit for a company. These days they barely try to hide that fact. In the case of Duolingo, do you think these savings will be reflected in lower subscription costs? Haha. In exchange for increasing their profits, you’ll be served an inferior content with a soulless provenance.
The timeless cycle of products, like Duolingo, starting out great until greed eats away at the qualities that anchored their greatness continues as it always has and always will. Corporate greed, thankfully, eventually catches up to most of them as they reach the limit of their customers’ patience and they gradually disappear.
We can’t do anything about the government and banks adding a little more hell to our lives by implementing A.I. chatbots and tools prematurely and without constraint, but as consumers we have to have the discipline to walk away when we can. Duolingo is one of those times.
The lack of respect for the language-learning customer in Duolingo in this move would be more breathtaking if it wasn’t happening all around us. Not a trace of any consideration for the language learner is demonstrated in any Duolingo executive communications regarding their integration of A.I. into their content driven product. It’s a brazen statement that the company and its billionaire want more profit and don’t really care how it affects your learning experience.
Overall we are helpless to combat the complete and unwelcome removal of human contact in customer service for the products we’re paying for with consumer or tax dollars.. But there are tons of language tools out there folks, many of them free. They were developed by real people passionate about teaching languages and many are vastly better than Duolingo, but simply lack the big marketing budgets. (I’ve promoted on these tools for years. Many are listed in my website tools of the month on this blog).
In the case of Duolingo, you can resist. You can say no to the breathtaking greed of a billionaire who seeks to suck the life out of online content that made him rich but he still expects you to pay the same for. Find another app.
After writing this blog, I ran across Comedian Josh Johnson’s take on Duolingo!
About the Author:
Kerry Baker is the author of four books.
Her most recent is “The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico”, a cookbook for travelers, snowbirds and expats who want to maintain a healthy diet in Mexico (spoiler: You must cook)
If Only I Had a Place is a guide to renting in Mexico. Renting in Mexico is different, with both advantages and disadvantages to the foreigner. Choosing the right place to live can make or break your entire experience in Mexico.
The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico is a how-to manual on how to set up part-time life in Mexico that will entertain while giving you a workable plan and time frame.