English learners can now practice speaking on Search
blog.research.google

Google coded a Duolingo clone in Google search. But of course it’s only available in select markets and it is 99.999% guaranteed to be killed within 3 years

  • cheery_coffee@lemmy.caEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    Solidly a “were using AI to do cool things, but those cool things don’t improve our core business” project.

    This product only makes sense to exist where Google is trying to show it gets AI, once it becomes more commoditized and integrated with language apps then they’ll be forced to confront the fact that teaching is not just translation, and the expert knowledge of language apps will beat them.

    I’m bearish on the longevity of this one.

    (The base of this tech does help their business, this front end doesn’t)

  • monotremata@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    Honestly, Google killing this will probably be the best outcome for it, because otherwise they’ll try to monetize it, and that could be a nightmare. Just a straight-up conversation partner that tries to wheedle personal information out of you for their advertising profiles. Even their example question about what you like to do for fun is a little uncomfortable in that context.

  • Monomate@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Maybe they won’t kill it within 3 years because they have plans to license this technology to other companies (language apps?).

    • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I heard Duolingo was implementing a AI practice thing as well

      At the least it should improve the basic pronunciation checker. Back when I tried it, I got all of them wrong consistently, unless I really forced certain syllables in an unnatural way

  • Moonrise2473@feddit.itOPEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    Why it’s already destined to be killed shortly, in my opinion:

    1. Available only on a very small selection of countries, with no plans of expansion

    2. Those countries are also the ones where phones are on the lower end and are less likely to have space for a giant, bloated Google search APK (on my pixel 5 the google app takes 1 gb of space + another gb for play services, on phones with 16-32 gb of storage there isn’t that luxury)

    3. It’s in Google search instead of a better suited app like Google translate (who’s going to think “let’s open Google search to improve my language skills”?)

    4. It’s from Google research and with this post they already proven their point. The devs now are thinking about the next project and this is probably in maintenance mode already

    It will disappear even before most people would have noticed it