this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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Duolingo CEO tries to walk back AI-first comments, fails (htxt.co.za)
submitted 1 week ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
135 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
  • Following backlash to statements that Duolingo will be AI-first, threatening jobs in the process, CEO Luis von Ahn has tried to walk back his statement.
  • Unfortunately, the CEO doesn’t walk back any of the key points he originally outlined, choosing instead to try, and fail to placate the maddening crowd.
  • Unfortunately the PR team may soon be replaced by AI as this latest statement has done anything but instil confidence in the firm’s users.
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[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

A completely optional, side objective that has no bearing on anything else? You can completely ignore the leader board and still progress. It's not competitive.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 days ago

You can set your profile to private to completely disable the leaderboard stuff.

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Yeah of course, winning or losing a game has no bearing on anything. It's still winning or losing.

The main objective is to complete lessons. You have to pay to do that or wait for energy to replenish.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz -1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

The main objective is not to complete lessons, but to learn. If you use up all your hearts because you make too many mistakes you're obviously not learning. At that point Duolingo completely fails though, instead of telling you to go back and practice, it asks if you want to buy hearts with in-game currency or switch to the paid super max hyper ultra AI whatever it's now called for unlimited hearts. Unlimited hearts doesn't give you shit though, it allows you to bruteforce your way through the lessons to get XP to rank up in the completely optional leaderboards, it doesn't help you learn. It's only pay to win if you see it as a game and not as a language learning app.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 0 points 6 days ago

No, you don't. It's only when you lose hearts. You get to make 5 mistakes. You can use gems to replenish them or they replenish over time. After playing for a while you earn plenty of gems to restore your hearts mid lesson every now and then. You can watch an ad to replenish your hearts between lessons, but not during. If you're not making mistakes then you can keep going. It's not that difficult to not make mistakes either, a lot of times they flat out give you the answer by tapping on words.

There are plenty of things to shit on Duolingo as a company. Calling the app pay to win really isn't one.