Duolingo tells 10% of workers they have been replaced by AI tools

Your next!

The rise of AI seems unstoppable I am sure that you will agree.

It has been announced by Duolingo Inc who are most commonly known for their language learning app that they have laid off 10% of their contractor workforce.

The tasks that these contractors were doing will now be performed by AI tools.

In their article Duolingo Cuts 10% of Contractors as It Uses More AI to Create App Content Bloomberg (1) report

"We just no longer need as many people to do the type of work some of these contractors were doing. Part of that could be attributed to AI,” the spokesperson said.

Meanwhile Engadget (2) Duolingo lays off contractors as it starts relying more on AI report that Duolingo did not say exactly what they did for the company

"Part of that could be attributed to AI."

Chief Executive Officer Luis von Ahn told Duolingo shareholders in November that the company is using AI to create new content, such as scripts, "dramatically faster."

This tweaked my interest and I did some research only to find a Duolingo subreddit!

Actually the credit to that goes primarily to Seyma Albarino a staff writer at Slator the leading source of news and research for the global translation, localization, and language technology industry.

Her article Duolingo Translator Layoffs Spark AI Debate (3) set me on the reddit trail.

It seems alarm bells had been ringing with nobody really taking things seriously.

In late December 2023 on the Duolingo subreddit, a Reddit user known as No_Comb_4582 first raised warning signs with their thread Big layoff at Duolingo (4)

Here we got news straight from the horse's mouth.

It transpired that In December 2023 Duolingo had actually “off boarded” as they were calling it a chunky percentage of their contractors who performed translations.

We all know that AI is cheaper than a human.

But we have all also seen or used AI translation services. They are okay and in alot of cases if you know how to use them, you can actually make pretty passable foreign language texts.

But they lose the nuances of said language!

No_Comb_4582 then asked the following questions:

I’m just curious, as a user how do you feel knowing that sentences and translations are coming from AI instead of human beings? Does it matter?

Of course a healthy debate ensued. To prove it was infact true, they showed an email (5) from Duolingo's HR department.

Did you see the ending ...

And I quote!

Best,
Nick

Best, I mean the fluff is that! You lay me off and you say best. What a fluffing t0sser.

Many replies were full of sympathy but they also showed how Duolingo has in fact gone downhill!

Last year Duolingo introduced a premium tier called Duolingo Max that gives subscribers access to a chatbot that can explain why their responses were correct or incorrect. Many replies pointed out that this was often wrong!

No_Comb_4582 had worked there for five years, and was part of a team with four core members.
Two members were off boarded whilst the other two will review the just review the AI content to make sure it’s acceptable.

Aye right, until that 2 becomes 1 and then becomes 0!

It is enivitable that more and more task will be performed with AI tools. But companies trying to hide behind the terms tasks does not hide from the fact that real humans are indeed losing their jobs to AI.

This is only going to be more and more common.

Have you been affected by AI at your work?

The odds you will know of someone pretty soon. Time will tell.

References & Sources

1 Bloomberg article Duolingo Cuts 10% of Contractors as It Uses More AI to Create App Content

2 Engadget article Duolingo lays off contractors as it starts relying more on AI

3 Slator article Duolingo Translator Layoffs Spark AI Debate

4 Reddit thread Big layoff at Duolingo (4)

5 email image

Lead image generated by AI from a prompt from the author on pixlr

Until next time, this is @tengolotodo.leo 9th January 2024.

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