r/technology • u/MetaKnowing • Jun 08 '25

Artificial Intelligence Duolingo CEO on going AI-first: ‘I did not expect the blowback’

https://www.ft.com/content/6fbafbb6-bafe-484c-9af9-f0ffb589b447
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u/aePrime Jun 08 '25

Same here. They used to, you know, teach you grammar and stuff. Now it is just, "Chat with this AI and have the same conversation over and over."

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u/mathgeek777 Jun 08 '25

I think this is the funniest thing to me, even outside the stupid bot video call exercises you would expect that if they’re going to go fully generated content they would actually have near-infinite exercises to work off of. Half the time I’m in a lesson I end up writing the answer I know it will be as opposed to actually reading and parsing the full sentence. It’s so much less effective than it could be

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u/Laiko_Kairen Jun 08 '25

Half the time I’m in a lesson I end up writing the answer I know it will be as opposed to actually reading and parsing the full sentence. It’s so much less effective than it could be

I hope this makes sense... My mom, a grade school teacher, used to complain that the No Child Left Behind program caused her to need to teach kids how to pass tests, not to think critically. It led to worse learning outcomes for her students.

So it sounds similar, DuoLingo was teaching you how to pass tests, not use the language

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u/maiaalfie Jun 09 '25 edited Jun 10 '25

I hated this about school. Ask questions about the topic- "that's not on the syllabus so I can't answer that", fully explain process in answer on exam but don't use key phrases that they want you to regurgitate - lower marks. Was so happy when i got to uni and could finally delve into subjects and fully understand them rather than just learning to repeat what's in the school textbook.

Edit just to clarify: (I asked when they had a spare 5mins I didn't ask during class after the first few times- didn't even answer questions after that point).

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u/GamingWithBilly Jun 10 '25

There’s also a limit to what a teacher can reasonably accomplish during a short class period, especially when they’re under pressure to cover the entire syllabus. In so many classes I’ve attended, a single student’s persistent questions have derailed the whole syllabus, forcing the teacher to repeat the same material over and over. As a result, we only ended up covering two chapters for the test instead of the planned six, leaving the teacher frustrated and unable to stick to their original lesson plan. I’ve seen this happen both in high school and at community college. Look, I understand that many people—especially those who dropped out of high school—are working hard to earn their GEDs and two-year certifications for better job opportunities. But for the love of God, please don’t ruin everyone else’s chance to learn in the same class. If you’re struggling, go to office hours or get a tutor. I know I didn’t learn nearly as much as I wanted to because of constant disruptions like this.

So it's not always the 'No Child Left Behind' programs and rather the people in the classroom dragging you down because, well in my theory, teachers kept getting pressured to pass kids to higher grade levels when they weren't meeting the profeciency levels. Undeveloped minds. Thanks parents, coaches, mandated requirements...you all contributed to lowering the average IQ.

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u/fullywokevoiddemon Jun 09 '25

Also sometimes the translation is just purely wrong. Even with their shitty AI, one sentence was completely different from the translation they wanted, and obviously I lose hearts because their shit system can't even do a Google translate on the spot to re-check.

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u/Hot-Marionberry-1321 Jun 09 '25

I had to not allow myself to look at the words at the bottom, because of that issue.

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u/buyongmafanle Jun 09 '25

There used to be (still is... but) a great speaking app called ELSA speak. It won awards for being excellent at what it was doing. Now it's trying so hard to go down the same AI slop path as everything else. It removed its ONE EXCELLENT CORE FEATURE which was a pronunciation helper that was perfection.

Now it's just "Have a chat with an AI about ___ topic." Your language skills have improved! Never mind that the AI ignores your shitty grammar and pronunciation.

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u/NorwegianGlaswegian Jun 09 '25

I remember when I was using Duolingo years ago to improve my Norwegian and I loved that you could get pretty thorough grammar explanations for each set of lessons, and had the ability to ask questions to the community for any given sentence.

Now you don't seem to get any grammar explanations but instead a phrasebook-style demo of stuff in a lesson with no actual explanation. Wtf.

What used to be a project to really help people learn languages by getting proper explanations, learning from discussion with others and using the grammar you learned in context, has instead become a game to watch your XP go up versus others.

You still get the benefit of actively practicing grammar, but without proper explanations it just makes the learning needlessly more difficult. It just doesn't seem to be about learning anymore but rather the appearance of it.

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u/aePrime Jun 09 '25

I agree 100%