In this photo illustration an Duolingo logo of a language-learning website and mobile app is seen on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Learning Spanish from a robot could soon get a lot easier.
Language app Duolingo last week launched a new subscription tier, called Duolingo Max, that uses an artificially intelligent chatbot to provide more personalized feedback to learners. That means that instead of being given pre-set responses, they will communicate directly with a bot powered by what's called a large language model (LLM).
Duolingo Max offers two new features: The first, Explain My Answer, uses the chatbot to give in-depth, grammatical explanations when a user makes a mistake. The second, Roleplay, allows users to chat with human-like characters in real-world settings such as an airport or cafe.
Both features use the latest version of OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT-4, which many are touting as a major step-up from the previous version that was made available to the public in late 2022. Duolingo had access to ChatGPT-4 before most of the public even had access to ChatGPT-3.
"We were really just blown away by the capabilities it had, and we immediately spun up a team building out our first features to be powered by GPT-4," Klinton Bicknell, head of AI for Duolingo, told Cheddar News.
But Duolingo is not a newcomer to artificial intelligence. It's been using the technology since it launched in 2011, and ChatGPT in particular for the last three years.
For much of its history as a company, however, Duolingo developed most of its AI applications in-house using open-source models. It only started using ChatGPT when it became clear that it was hard to beat the scale of what OpenAI was doing with more advanced AI models.
Bicknell broke it down like this: "In the language space, there has been a trend in AI for a while where the best solutions tend to involve a two-step process. The first part of that process involves scraping the entire internet for text and is prohibitively expensive for smaller companies. The second part of the process is building industry-specific applications."
As the technology evolved, it became more cost-effective to pay OpenAI for access to ChatGPT rather than build its own large language model. Spurring this on was the fact that OpenAI's economy of scale was making its product more affordable.
"At this point, for GPT-3 and now especially for GPT-4, doing that first step is just so expensive that it's just not practical for moderately sized companies," Bicknell said.
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A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
The stunning indictment that led to the arrest of more than 30 people — including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and other NBA figures — has drawn new scrutiny of the booming business of sports betting in the U.S. The multibillion-dollar industry has made it easy for sports fans — and even some players — to wager on everything from the outcome of games to that of a single play with just a few taps of a cellphone. But regulating the rapidly-growing industry has proven to be a challenge. Professional sports leagues’ own role in promoting gambling has also raised eyebrows.
