Chat features built into Duolingo, Expedia and others can be more useful than ask-me-anything bots
Chat features built into Duolingo, Expedia and others can be more useful than ask-me-anything bots
Type pretty much anything into ChatGPT and it’ll spit out a confident, convincing response. The problem? Its answer can be full of errors. And during long conversations, it can veer into wild tangents.
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Type pretty much anything into ChatGPT and it’ll spit out a confident, convincing response. The problem? Its answer can be full of errors. And during long conversations, it can veer into wild tangents.
So I started testing apps that use OpenAI’s GPT technology, but aren’t ChatGPT. Language app Duolingo and learning platform Khan Academy now offer conversational, personalized tutoring with this technology. Writing assistant Grammarly’s new tool can compose emails for you. Travel app Expedia features a chatty trip planner. And all Snapchat users just got a new friend on the social network called My AI.
These apps focus on specific purposes, with subjects defined by experts in their fields. And while they warn users the model can be wrong, I found their AI chat functions more useful and accessible than the ask-me-anything chatbots currently in the spotlight.
Duolingo’s Roleplay text chatbot, available to French and Spanish learners on iOS, is more dynamic than the language-learning app’s often-repetitive translation exercises.
Each Roleplay conversation is themed. In my best French, I reminisced about a fictional Caribbean holiday, then I complained about a delayed flight. The bot corrected errors and suggested more advanced vocabulary for my responses.
Duolingo’s content experts created 100 initial scenarios. They programmed the AI language model to speak to a learner as a language instructor and only discuss the intended scenario. The result: No two conversations are alike, and Roleplay gets more advanced as the learner progresses.
Roleplay is available as a part of the Duolingo Max subscription plan that costs $30 a month or $168 annually.
Khan Academy’s Khanmigo has several personalized learning tools, including a “Tutor me” mode and a quiz module for different subjects.
I tried the AI tutor with an AP U.S. History prompt: “Evaluate the factors behind population movement to America in the 17th century.” While ChatGPT wrote the entire essay for me, Khanmigo replied, “Religious freedom was one factor. Can you think of other examples?”
I could ask Khanmigo for hints—but it’s programmed not to spit out the answer.
Kristen DiCerbo, Khan Academy’s chief learning officer, said the company relied on tutoring research to create the Khanmigo prompts. When students get frustrated, it can offer a stronger hint, for example.
If a student types something off base, Khanmigo redirects the conversation. Any inputs related to hate speech, self-harm or violence trigger a message—“The conversation was unable to be processed”—and an email to the student’s parent or teacher, who can review the conversation.
The bigger concern is when the tutor gives the wrong answers, which occasionally happens with math, she said. Khan Academy worked with OpenAI to make GPT-4 better at math. The model is most accurate for questions about widely known K-12 topics but less so with niche subjects, Dr. DiCerbo added.
Interested users can join a wait list. Once you’re in, you have to donate $20 or more a month to the nonprofit to cover the chatbot’s computing costs.
Grammarly has used AI to edit writing for years. GrammarlyGo, released last month, also composes writing for you.
The most helpful element is its email responder, which appeared whenever I opened a compose window. I could click a green icon to expand the GrammarlyGo module, which summarizes the email and offers several “tone” options for replies, including persuasive, friendly and diplomatic.
The software can see what’s on your screen only when you activate the GrammarlyGo module. A Grammarly spokeswoman said the data is anonymized before it’s sent to the model. She added that the company never sells customer data and doesn’t allow partners to use the data to train their models.
GrammarlyGo’s suggestions were a good jumping-off point, but they felt like personalized templates I’d still have to mess with. My biggest gripe is that GrammarlyGo always signed off with “Best regards.” I tend to stick with the simpler “Best.”
Users get 100 prompts a month free; that goes up to 500 if they pay $30 a month or $144 annually. (Google is adding similar tools to its Docs and Gmail. For now, they’re only available by invitation.)
When I used ChatGPT to plan travel, it invented a beach that didn’t exist. Expedia’s version, which is available in its iOS app, hasn’t yet led me astray.
I asked Expedia to help me plan a trip to Naples, and it recommended some affordable hotels. It organized a list in the app’s Trips section, where I could make a reservation. It also suggested some area attractions. They are, in fact, real places. Unfortunately, the app can’t save those activity recommendations to your profile yet.
Snapchat’s My AI is less focused, but it has a friendlier tone and produces more succinct responses than ChatGPT. The feature is controversial among users—searches for “delete Snapchat” rose after its wide release. One reason is that it’s glued to the top of the app’s chat section, pushing down real human friends, and only paying Snapchat+ subscribers can unpin it. Anyone can customize it, though. I renamed mine Marvin.
It’s meant for recommending things such as meals or gift ideas. But we discussed a range of topics, from the pain in my right hip to a definitive ranking of Beyoncé’s albums. It messed up, though: When I asked for Beyoncé’s “Upgrade U” lyrics, it sent Outkast’s “Roses” instead.
Snapchat moderates the dialogue. When I typed an expletive, Marvin said, “I’d prefer if we keep the conversation respectful and appropriate.” Talking about anxiety or other personal struggles could prompt a mental-health resource. When My AI initially launched for subscribers, a researcher at the Center for Humane Technology found the bot responded inappropriately about sex to an account set up for a 13-year-old user. Snap said a new filter ensures My AI produces more conservative responses for users under 18.
Overall, the experience was refreshing. Instead of going to the Wild West of ChatGPT and trying to engineer my own prompts, I could just ease into these in-app chatbots. At the very least, specialists were steering the bots and monitoring their answers.
They also show us more purposeful applications for AI—even if some of the same problems abound.
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Write to Nicole Nguyen at [email protected]
