Duolingo is the well known language “learning” company that attempts to make learning languages (at least the basics) a more fun experience (using game design techniques to reinforce that progress/reward loop). Myself, I gave it a try for nearly 3-months (Japanese) and the “gas began running out” with the level of usefulness well before then. It may help with the very basics, but you see the limitations not with just vocabulary, but also useful daily conversation. I get the repetition angle, but it sometimes comes back so far later where it is jarring (compared to the more advanced lessons). The entire progress and reward loop also ended up feeling way too obvious (gamifying something like this still needs that dopamine fix and you just don’t get that after a short period of time). I guess considering that lot of it can still be used for “free”, means that one cannot really “complain”.
Nonetheless, nothing is ever really free. Our usage (and associated patterns) is part of that (and any data collected is going to be utilized to best increase the chances of monetizing the service. I’m very cynical about privacy policies (I mean there are always these loopholes with sharing certain information with “partners” for example). You provide an e-mail address, it becomes a piece of valuable information (thus always use a burner). Basically, services like this are also about the number of users (since the law of large numbers means that much more potential personal information a business may have – that is valuable during say an attempt to make a company attractive as an acquisition target). But I digress.
This is also yet another company with a CEO that has been on this “war path” to replace as much of its workers and contractors (who usually do not receive much company benefits anyway) with AI. Yes, they’ve been using the tech for several years now, but the CEO recently made it even clearer of accelerating that pace. I personally believe companies like this should be shunned once the real extent is known (like with Duolingo’s CEO). Part of this reminds me of the time when executives (in the U.S.) began pushing for offshoring parts of their businesses in order to reduce costs (you know like manufacturing and customer service).
https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/duolingo-announces-plans-replace-many-173024603.html
CEO Luis von Ahn didn’t even mince words; he said the company is completing its “AI-first pivot with the intention of eventually replacing ALL of its contractors with AI (if that AI can do that same work)”. And the kicker is he doesn’t care if the technology is “100% perfect” before deploying it. The article highlights a few cases a poorer experience once AI was used (like for translations or speech performed with AI versus the previous human voice over). The other key issue with AI is that it’s based on stolen intellectual property and as I keep saying, GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). The “INTELLIGENCE” part is also an oxymoron. The algorithms are designed and programmed by people and therefore will be as fallible as humans. These systems also lack that actual human touch and can only make decisions based on what it is programmed (told) to do.
Sure, I’ve heard the “adapt and embrace the future of AI or be left behind” mantra before. I call this tech broligarch propaganda. I worked in the heart of Silicon Valley (systems, network engineering, physical IT infrastructure, operations, enterprise IT, etc) and am versed with the tech shenanigans of the past. My own take on AI is pretty clear. I do see machine learning algorithms as useful in an assistive capacity (supercharging filters, encoding/transcoding for example). Like I am in favor of the algorithm and LLM’s that can assist in photo and video restoration/upscaling enhancements. Similarly, I can see it being useful for very mundane tasks. What I am not onboard with though is when it comes to supplanting human creativity and actual interpersonal involvement, interaction, and communication. Corporate executives have long LIED about the efficiencies and productivity of technology being beneficial for the work force. Instead, they’ve weaponized it into “doing more with less” as they find ways to eliminate actual people from positions.
These corporate executives mainly see this technology from that executive mindset; as the ability to eliminate one of their key expenses, human workers. No wages/salaries to pay, no benefits that need to be paid, no person who has to be trained, no ability for a person to call out. With Duolingo, von Ahn also wants to use AI for hiring and performance reviews. Basically large scale dehumanization of the business. The takeaway is he doesn’t value the human spirit (basically a general reminder of the socio/psychopathic nature of these people). Remember, human participation (including our flaws) is what gives everything that human touch. Humans (except the evil ones) have souls and a conscience. AI tech lacks those qualities which is why the stuff it outputs, tends to lack life/personal qualities. Businesses that phase out human workers will learn how souless their businesses will end up looking/feeling to customers. It’s like AI art and writing. There is a level of sameness to them, the lack of actual personal touch of an artist or writer. Finally, the corporate elite rarely ever takes into account the amount of energy resources that goes into training these models (or that these LLM’s are built on a lot of misappropriated/stolen intellectual property where companies like OpenAI are making the bold claim that they should be free to do this under the fair use doctrine). My blunt response to that is GTFO.
2 Comments
Comments are closed.