8 votes

Duolingo's first anime is coming October 13

5 comments

  1. chocobean
    (edited )
    Link
    Duolingo announced it was replacing human contract workers with AI — and then launched 148 new AI-written courses. Duolingo Announces Plans to Replace as Many Human Workers as Possible With AI So,...

    Duolingo announced it was replacing human contract workers with AI — and then launched 148 new AI-written courses.

    Duolingo Announces Plans to Replace as Many Human Workers as Possible With AI

    Folks online have found the language app’s shift towards AI pretty duo-plicitious — especially because Duolingo has been using AI for years now. As one user on the r/Technology subreddit noted, Duolingo already appears to use “AI pronunciations for Irish” and “sacked the contractor” or contractors that built it out.

    That user isn’t the first to make that claim — two years ago, folks on the Duolingo subreddit pointed out that the voices for Irish (the term folks in Ireland and its diaspora use for Gaelic) seemed to be “computer generated” and, basically, crappy. A few months later, a company spokesperson confirmed that translators had indeed been fired in favor of AI.

    So, is it safe to assume this will be AI generated?

    I'm also biased because their Cantonese program sucks

    11 votes
  2. [2]
    CannibalisticApple
    Link
    Gotta appreciate Duolingo continuing to lean into the memes about the owl threatening people by apparently kidnapping people into a death game. Also just want to point out "first" implies more...

    Gotta appreciate Duolingo continuing to lean into the memes about the owl threatening people by apparently kidnapping people into a death game.

    Also just want to point out "first" implies more anime series will follow.

    6 votes
    1. CannibalisticApple
      Link Parent
      Related: worth looking at the comments, because DuoLingo replied to a few and has already threatened at least one person for breaking their streak.

      Related: worth looking at the comments, because DuoLingo replied to a few and has already threatened at least one person for breaking their streak.

      2 votes
  3. [2]
    Raistlin
    Link
    You guys have no idea how hard I've tried to find old apk versions with the old path system, and how hard Duolingo has worked to make sure they're no longer working. Nothing to with the anime, I'm...

    You guys have no idea how hard I've tried to find old apk versions with the old path system, and how hard Duolingo has worked to make sure they're no longer working.

    Nothing to with the anime, I'm just perpetually sad about what Duolingo is these days.

    1. zestier
      Link Parent
      Are they actually doing anything to specifically make those not work? I'd assume that those old builds are simply built on top of web endpoints that they no longer support. It would be quite a bit...

      Are they actually doing anything to specifically make those not work? I'd assume that those old builds are simply built on top of web endpoints that they no longer support. It would be quite a bit weirder to me if they did work because it would imply they left the servers for legacy features running for no reason.

      3 votes