Many say artificial intelligence is the biggest invention since the internet. The sudden rise of large language models like ChatGPT has fueled the hype to a higher level – AI will be the common language the world speaks and humans can build the Tower of Babel again.

The ChatGPT frenzy has propelled the technology to another level. The natural language processing tool is powerful enough to generate human-like conversations. With the technology in hand, it seems spending thousands of hours to master a different tongue is simply a waste of time.

Duolingo's co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn has a different opinion. The computer scientist who created one of the world's most popular language learning apps said it's still worthwhile for people to learn a new language despite the rapid advancement of AI powered translation technology in the past decade.

"Computers are better than humans playing chess. And there are way more people playing chess now than there's ever been," von Ahn told CGTN. "It's just people want to do certain things even if computers are good at it."

There is a big crowd who are interested in language learning. Over a billion people around the world are learning a new language and the number is increasing. This is reflected in Duolingo's expanding monthly active user base, which reached 74.1 million in the second quarter of this year.

Language learning is a real demand for business people and those who are moving to a new country because a human translator or an AI robot can't replace human-to-human talks. "It's so awkward to have a translator with you. It's also so slow," von Ahn said. "There's a major delay between them because word order changes between different languages. So you have to wait all the way until the end to be able to start translating it."

According to Duolingo's research on its users, the majority of the interviewees in the U.S. agreed learning a new language could make traveling a better experience and more fun, and 80 percent think learning new languages will inspire them to be travelers with an adventurous spirit. The app attracted many Mandarin learners as well. Their primary motivation to dabble in the language was for "intellectual development," according to the company.

Luis von Ahn co-founded Duolingo in 2011 in the American city of Pittsburgh. The Carnegie Mellon University graduate developed the app that offers customized learning exercises, immediate feedback and gamification. From popular languages such as Spanish and French to fictional languages like Klingon or High Valyrian, the platform provides equal access with over 40 languages to everyone who wants to learn. Last year, the company even rolled out sessions for its first dialect language – Cantonese.

The Guatemalan founder has applied AI technology to the language learning platform since day one.

"The system watches everything you're doing and it sees whenever you get an exercise right, whenever you get an exercise wrong, it remembers all of that and it uses that to build a model for each user," he said. The system can provide specific practices, for example, exercises on past tense for the user if it notices significant errors on such issue during the practice.

"We use AI to tailor what we teach specifically to you," according von Ahn.

Duolingo has adopted a powerful AI tool that can provide conversations based on previous exchanges with the user to make language learning more natural. The AI can understand the sentences and react to the input from learners to keep the conversation going.

"You can have a free flow conversation where you may say, how are you doing? I'm doing well. What are you doing today? I'm going to a restaurant. Oh, which restaurant? Like that type of multi-turn conversation," von Ahn explained. The consistent conversation with context can proceed in both speaking and writing practices.

In addition, Duolingo utilizes the latest GPT-4 technology, an upgrade version of ChatGPT to create a feature in its app – roleplay, where the users can practice the languages in diverse scenarios to strengthen their understanding of the languages.

The goal for the language learning app for von Ahn himself, is to operate on par with a human tutor. He said Duolingo is already as effective as study in a classroom.

"I think with AI, we're getting closer and closer to [being] as good as a one-on-one human tutor. That's what we're doing," he said.

Videographer: Wang Hanwei

Video editor: Yang Yiren

Cover image: Zhu Shangfan