Using dot to practice business Mandarin and get an emailed summary
Trying to be intentionally lazy, the author called dot to practice business Mandarin for about 40 minutes, got grammar corrections and a summary email as requested, but found dot's speaking speed kept creeping back up.
I’m trying to be intentionally lazy in my daily life so I’m forced to use personal AI agents (dot, Muse, OpenClaw) as much as possible and find out what they can actually do beyond booking flights. 🙂 One of my "lazy" use cases: dot for language learning is surprisingly great. After a work trip to Shanghai, I decided to commit to learning business Mandarin. But I'm too lazy to research and sign up for classes or programs. So while driving to a birthday party, I called dot and asked it to practice with me, teach me new terms, and email me a summary afterward. ✅ I practiced for much longer than I would have with a human because I couldn’t be embarrassed by the state of my Mandarin. For ~40 minutes, I threw out sentences half in English while dot filled in vocabulary and corrected my grammar, switching between languages seamlessly. I’d call it again just to practice more. ✅ The email summary (pic attached) was formatted exactly as I'd asked on the call. 🟡 dot appeared to have no awareness of its own speaking speed. At times, it would speak so fast that the words started to garble. I’d ask it to slow down, and it would, but the speed would creep back up a few rounds later. The garbling was a little unsettling. dot made practice so low-friction and low-stakes that even the laziest version of me is doing it. More boring personal agent use cases to come if there’s interest!