After 'AI-First' Promise, Duolingo CEO Admits 'I Did Not Expect the Blowback' (ft.com) 46
Last month, Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn "shared on LinkedIn an email he had sent to all staff announcing Duolingo was going 'AI-first'," remembers the Financial Times.
"I did not expect the amount of blowback," he admits.... He attributes this anger to a general "anxiety" about technology replacing jobs. "I should have been more clear to the external world," he reflects on a video call from his office in Pittsburgh. "Every tech company is doing similar things [but] we were open about it...."
Since the furore, von Ahn has reassured customers that AI is not going to replace the company's workforce. There will be a "very small number of hourly contractors who are doing repetitive tasks that we no longer need", he says. "Many of these people are probably going to be offered contractor jobs for other stuff." Duolingo is still recruiting if it is satisfied the role cannot be automated. Graduates who make up half the people it hires every year "come with a different mindset" because they are using AI at university.
The thrust of the AI-first strategy, the 46-year-old says, is overhauling work processes... He wants staff to explore whether their tasks "can be entirely done by AI or with the help of AI. It's just a mind shift that people first try AI. It may be that AI doesn't actually solve the problem you're trying to solve.....that's fine." The aim is to automate repetitive tasks to free up time for more creative or strategic work.
Examples where it is making a difference include technology and illustration. Engineers will spend less time writing code. "Some of it they'll need to but we want it to be mediated by AI," von Ahn says... Similarly, designers will have more of a supervisory role, with AI helping to create artwork that fits Duolingo's "very specific style". "You no longer do the details and are more of a creative director. For the vast majority of jobs, this is what's going to happen...." [S]ocietal implications for AI, such as the ethics of stealing creators' copyright, are "a real concern". "A lot of times you don't even know how [the large language model] was trained. We should be careful." When it comes to artwork, he says Duolingo is "ensuring that the entirety of the model is trained just with our own illustrations".
"I did not expect the amount of blowback," he admits.... He attributes this anger to a general "anxiety" about technology replacing jobs. "I should have been more clear to the external world," he reflects on a video call from his office in Pittsburgh. "Every tech company is doing similar things [but] we were open about it...."
Since the furore, von Ahn has reassured customers that AI is not going to replace the company's workforce. There will be a "very small number of hourly contractors who are doing repetitive tasks that we no longer need", he says. "Many of these people are probably going to be offered contractor jobs for other stuff." Duolingo is still recruiting if it is satisfied the role cannot be automated. Graduates who make up half the people it hires every year "come with a different mindset" because they are using AI at university.
The thrust of the AI-first strategy, the 46-year-old says, is overhauling work processes... He wants staff to explore whether their tasks "can be entirely done by AI or with the help of AI. It's just a mind shift that people first try AI. It may be that AI doesn't actually solve the problem you're trying to solve.....that's fine." The aim is to automate repetitive tasks to free up time for more creative or strategic work.
Examples where it is making a difference include technology and illustration. Engineers will spend less time writing code. "Some of it they'll need to but we want it to be mediated by AI," von Ahn says... Similarly, designers will have more of a supervisory role, with AI helping to create artwork that fits Duolingo's "very specific style". "You no longer do the details and are more of a creative director. For the vast majority of jobs, this is what's going to happen...." [S]ocietal implications for AI, such as the ethics of stealing creators' copyright, are "a real concern". "A lot of times you don't even know how [the large language model] was trained. We should be careful." When it comes to artwork, he says Duolingo is "ensuring that the entirety of the model is trained just with our own illustrations".
The public does not really like AI (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The public does not really like AI (Score:5, Insightful)
Most likely the technology didn't work and he's back peddling because of it.
What he was probably trying to do was a pump and dump with investors. Right now there is a bunch of Rich assholes buying up companies firing everyone and saying they're all replaced with AI and then getting a fuck ton of money coming in from investors.
Don't get me wrong this is the problem with America we have absolutely no concept of nuance. Either every job gets replaced with AI or no job gets replaced with ai.
So when everything is washed out we are probably going to have around 20 to 30% of the jobs permanently gone and we are probably going to have people forced to work 80 hours a week to make up the difference and a huge amount of permanent technological and social unemployment
But it's not going to happen all at once to everyone and everything so people can't comprehend it. Everything has to be like a light switch. Either on or off but no gradation for them to understand it and the impact.
It's more like boiling a frog. Only the frog is smart enough to jump out.
Re: (Score:3)
Most likely the technology didn't work and he's back peddling because of it.
This is probably it. AI has niche uses, but at least as it's sold to the public it's not at all what the marketing says. And what it's good at probably isn't going to get a lot of subscriptions.
It's good at some limited green field coding. You still hit a hard wall with actual environment context. MCPs claim to help solve this, but those hit a hard wall with IT Security, data sovereignty, and more. I think MS has the lead here as th
The uses aren't niche (Score:2)
Again you have to start thinking in nuanced terms or you're going to get blindsided.
Llms are likely to increase productivity substantially, realistic estimate so far are around 20 to 30%.
You should be expecting layoffs equal to that. Probably a bit big
Re: (Score:2)
There's a lot of hype and outright fraud out there when it comes to the supposed capabilities of LLMs and what they bring to the table. See also The Leaderboard Illusion paper [arxiv.org]. It's important to not be overwhelmed by all the claims.
There's an old business trick from the 80s that explains much without needing to invoke real productivity increases from LLMs. It involves new investors, direction change, layoffs, and repackaging the valuable business assets, then selling them off and letting the old carcass e
Re: The uses aren't niche (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It's more like boiling a frog. Only the frog is smart enough to jump out.
Interesting analogy. I wonder what your interpretation of "jumping out" is for the typical American citizen. If it involves voting for Democrats, then you are still too stupid to speak to.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, the public likes to *use* AI for themselves. They just don't like it when business use it, or claim to use it, to eliminate jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
Not about the workers (Score:2)
I had been considering checking out Duolingo as a way to do something useful in my downtime. After hearing about the AI and other changes, it seems to have nothing to offer that a free online resource doesn't. Not even an owl, anymore. I liked the owl.
But yeah, if I worked there I would be not just disappointed, but enraged.
Re:Not about the workers (Score:5, Interesting)
It's actually worse than free online resources: the Duolingo Ai will mispronounce many languages (eg. Japanese, Irish). Spending your time learning the wrong way to speak a language is just awful!
At least the free resources are (generally) made by human native language speakers, and thus have correct pronunciation.
Re: (Score:2)
They might bring the owl back, but thanks to their AI, it'll have 6 toes and whinny now.
Rest assured that the only lesson he learned (Score:4, Insightful)
is to keep quiet about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. But since AI slop is easy to recognize, that only allows him to blame somebody else if found out.
Seek first to understand, then to be heard (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The mistake companies seem to be making is that AI visibility is for investors, not customers.
DUOLINGO is annoying (Score:3, Interesting)
Everyone has a method of learning but over time we've learned classrooms with one on one teacher interaction works.
Duolingo has not learned this.
I am trilingual and tried Duolingo for 180 days. I tried free, paid, etc. It did help me learn vocabulary words NOBODY KNOWS.
Like for example, "camarero" for waiter. Sorry, the word is "mesero." Or "Boligrapho" for pen. Sorry, the word is "Plume."
There's pronounciation. Duolingo has people saying the word Yo as "Joe". No, nobody says "Joe quiero taco bell." We say "Yo."
Also there's "Elle" which Duolingo pronounced "Ejje".
That's core language stuff. Then there's the site. Many times (Android, Linux, Crome, Firefox) it wouldn't let me click on a word.
Sometimes when I had to speak it wouldn't "recognize" one word and while I repeat it perfectly (with a fluent Spanish speaker at
my side) it refused to accept it.
I don't care if they use AI (LLMs) or humans or trained monkeys. It's a piece of crap.
All that is about the language learning part. Bad vocabulary, bad pronunciation, failure to recognize, and bad website.
But the damn thing emailed me daily "reminding" me to keep my "streak" going and "my friends'" streaks. I tried to turn
it off but to no avail.
Duolingo is a piece of crap. I credit them with teaching me vocabulary words nobody else knows, filling my mailbox with
exhortations, and generally being annoying.
Can't wait for their inevitable exit from the market.
I speak three languages. I wanted to be able to converse in Spanish. Half a year later I hate them so very very much.
Re:DUOLINGO is annoying (Score:4, Interesting)
Duolingo has people saying the word Yo as "Joe". No, nobody says "Joe quiero taco bell."
There are many dialects of Spanish. Mexicans don't pronounce it that way, but Cubans do (think Al Pacino's Scarface), and also a Venezuelan that I worked with.
Re: Ok... (Score:2)
This might come as a shock but there are regional differences INSIDE Mexico too. Just like there is all over the US.
You learn those by experiencing it, visiting different regions and talking to people, not from an app or a tutor. Nobody is suggesting otherwise either, just a bunch of bizarre strawman arguments.
Re: (Score:2)
Duolingo has people saying the word Yo as "Joe". No, nobody says "Joe quiero taco bell."
There are many dialects of Spanish. Mexicans don't pronounce it that way, but Cubans do (think Al Pacino's Scarface), and also a Venezuelan that I worked with.
Came here to say that. Yes, some Spanish speakers do pronounce their Spanish words that way. There are indeed many dialects.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: DUOLINGO is annoying (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, nobody says "Joe quiero taco bell."
Inexplicably, some people actually do...
Re: (Score:2)
I am trilingual and tried Duolingo for 180 days. I tried free, paid, etc. It did help me learn vocabulary words NOBODY KNOWS.
Like for example, "camarero" for waiter. Sorry, the word is "mesero." Or "Boligrapho" for pen. Sorry, the word is "Plume."
There's pronounciation. Duolingo has people saying the word Yo as "Joe". No, nobody says "Joe quiero taco bell." We say "Yo."
Also there's "Elle" which Duolingo pronounced "Ejje".
Aren't those regional differences?
Re: (Score:2)
Further proving your point that Duolingo is a piece of crap. They mix dialects and teaches a chimera nobody speaks. Words and pronunciation from different dialects all mixed up. Not a single human could be as bad. Any human would teach one dialect, consistently.
"Camarero" is the word in Spain. If you look for a job of "mesero" in Spain, the offers you get say "camarero" https://www.randstad.es/candid... [randstad.es]
Re: (Score:3)
I am trilingual and tried Duolingo for 180 days. I tried free, paid, etc. It did help me learn vocabulary words NOBODY KNOWS.
Like for example, "camarero" for waiter. Sorry, the word is "mesero." Or "Boligrapho" for pen. Sorry, the word is "Plume."
There's pronounciation. Duolingo has people saying the word Yo as "Joe". No, nobody says "Joe quiero taco bell." We say "Yo."
Also there's "Elle" which Duolingo pronounced "Ejje".
That's core language stuff. Then there's the site.
It sounds like you're splitting hairs over dialects and accents. Also it's not "plume" it's "pluma", and in Mexico (northern parts at least, which are what most commonly spill into the US) there's basically only pluma, in Spain and other hispanic regions there's typically both. Notice pluma is also the word for feather, as in like a feather pen, this is different from a boligrafo (yeah, you misspelled it) as in like a ball-point pen.
Notice also that it highly varies by region how words with the "y" sound ac
Re: DUOLINGO is annoying (Score:2)
Everyone has a method of learning but over time we've learned classrooms with one on one teacher interaction works.
Duolingo has not learned this.
One on one tutoring works so everything else doesn't? Well you're highly regarded aren't you.
The rest of your rant is just ignorance of dialects and regional differences. English speakers in California, Texas, and Maine for example pronounce words quite differently. I bet you don't know what a tank means in Texas.
Look gav, I'm glad you found a boyfriend that speaks Spanish and you've had this great epiphany with what kind of learning works for you. You won't learn regional differences from a tutor. If your
'schools will just be for childcare' (Score:2)
He seems to be having a little memory issues about which things he said that were causing the uproar.
Reminder: It was the Duolingo CEO says there may still be schools in our AI future, but mostly just for childcare [businessinsider.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Nice. Why are we letting the inmates run the asylum? AI is nowhere even remotely near that level and it is unclear whether it will ever get there.
Uh, he's lying (Score:2)
I've been through this since 1984. I recognize the walk and the talk.
If he could, he would replace every worker except himself with AI.
Re: (Score:1)
Lol. Well done-- hilarious. Shame you are at 0.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. The AI fanbois never learn and remain dumb as fuck. This is the 4rd (I think) AI hype I have seen that blasted on the scene, promised to change everything and then failed to deliver. Sure, some smaller advances are always made. But never the "world changing" crap the assholes that want to get rich and/or famous promise. The only thing that is different this time is that mechanical, mindless bureaucratic tasks may be within AI grasp now. That is a problem, but it is not "world changing" in any way.
Tone deaf (Score:3)
Another longstanding issue is taking away the user supported forum because they didn't want pay people to manage it.
Guess what, you can offer free DuoLingo memberships to people that help moderate forums. You can use AI to check posts before people post them. However, keeping user interaction is kind of the point of language learning. Why would we want to learn language if we're not communicating with another person?
The CEO is completely tonedeaf to what people are having issues with. AI isn't the biggest issue, but it's the straw that broke the camel's back.
You have to forgive tech CEOs (Score:3)
They have their heads so far up their own ass that they aren't aware of us peons constantly complaining about this AI bullshit and how we don't want software that hallucinates and lies to us replacing our jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's a lack of class conscious working a bit in reverse. The rich sometimes like to pretend they are just like everyone else, and frequently they believe that little fantasy. MBAs believe that because work 50+ hours a week, they are just like a hard working blue collar worker. Except that they don't lose their house if they leave their job. And they aren't likely to be part of a layoff. And they don't have to take out a second mortgage to get their kid braces or to pay for home nursing for their disabled mo
Disconnect (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Some smaller, familliy-run and owned businesses have some pretty good CEOs. Do an IPO and everything goes downhill. The business essentially turns into a get-rich-quick scheme after that and after a short while nothing of value gets produced. Only exception is if there is a majority stock-holder that actually can think strategically.
Capitalism has failed. We need something new that actually can do better than planning only for the next quarter or sees growth as the only real goal.
Re: (Score:2)
Capitalism has failed.
Seems Marilyn was right when he said capitalism has made it this way, old fashioned fascism will take it away.
So he's not a genius? (Score:2)
Sounds like Duolingo needs a new CEO as soon as possible. Get rid of the idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. But in a time where profit is more important than _anything_ (including survival), is that going to happen? These days, a CEO can be dumb as fuck (with ample examples in large and very large enterprises), as long as they deliver dollars short-term, it's ok.