After users criticized Duolingo for shifting its priorities to artificial intelligence, CEO Louis von Ahn tried to calm the audience. He claims that artificial intelligence will not replace the work of the company's employees, but did not deny previous plans to reduce contractors. This is reported by Hypertext.
Von Ahn said Duolingo is continuing to hire at its usual pace and is looking at AI as a tool to improve efficiency. He also promised to add training programs and support for teams as they adapt to new technologies.
“AI is creating uncertainty for all of us, and we can respond to this with fear or curiosity. I’ve always encouraged our team to embrace new technology (that’s why we originally built for mobile instead of desktop), and we are taking that same approach with AI. By understanding the capabilities and limitations of AI now, we can stay ahead of it and remain in control of our own product and our mission,” von Ahn writes.
The company recently announced that it will gradually abandon the services of contractors in favor of AI, and automation will become a criterion for expanding teams. It was also reported that the mastery of AI tools will be taken into account in annual employee evaluations.
After that, Louis von Ahn also stated that artificial intelligence can already teach better than humans, and schools in the future will remain mostly child care facilities.
Duolingo is not the only company to try to adjust its rhetoric about AI. A similar situation arose with Swedish fintech company Klarna, which initially claimed that AI would replace humans but was later forced to rehire employees.