Latest news with #LuisVonAhn
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Duolingo CEO walks back AI-first comments: ‘I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do'
A week after declaring that AI would eventually replace contract workers at the language-learning app, Duolingo's CEO said the company was 'continuing to hire' and would support its existing workers in getting up to speed on the technology. It follows buzzy startup Klarna in backing off an AI-first promise. Language-learning app Duolingo has become the latest company to publicly temper its AI enthusiasm after a series of bold proclamations on AI replacing humans garnered severe criticism. Luis von Ahn, co-founder and CEO, took to LinkedIn on Thursday to walk back a previous stance pushing AI use over human employees. 'To be clear: I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do (we are in fact continuing to hire at the same speed as before),' he wrote. 'I see it as a tool to accelerate what we do, at the same or better level of quality. And the sooner we learn how to use it, and use it responsibly, the better off we will be in the long run.' He added, 'No one is expected to navigate this shift alone. We're developing workshops and advisory councils, and carving out dedicated experimentation time to help all our teams learn and adapt.' The clarification is a 180-degree turn from the company's position a week ago, when it declared it would 'gradually stop using contractors to do work AI can handle,' evaluate AI fluency in workers' annual reviews, and only add new employees 'if a team cannot automate more of their work.' Von Ahn also appeared to throw his weight behind AI over human teachers in a podcast appearance. Speaking on No Priors with Sarah Guo, he predicted that AI would soon be able to teach any subject, at a greater scale, and create 'better learning outcomes' than human teachers, but added that schools would continue to exist 'because you still need childcare.' The criticism flew in. On the company's popular TikTok and Instagram accounts, commenters piled on to bash AI on every recent post. (On one video where a baby owl plushie asked 'mama, may I have cookie,' the top comment read: 'mama may I have real people running the company 💔') The company even put von Ahn in his own TikTok, opposite a masked, hoodie-wearing person to explain that 'AI will allow us to reach more people.' A Duolingo spokesperson told Fortune: 'We're still growing our team, and we're training and developing our talent so they benefit from using AI.' He added, 'All AI content is created under the direction and guidance of our learning experts. We have rigorous quality standards in place to ensure that any content we publish is safe, accurate and aligned with the CEFR,' referencing an international standard to measure language ability. Duolingo's self-correction is just the latest in a recent trend. Fintech app Klarna had its own turnaround on AI last month. After publicly touting the superiority of its AI chatbot, saying it hadn't hired humans in a year, the company's CEO revealed that the 'lower quality' of the chatbot meant it would start hiring humans again after all. Shopify faced similar criticism after a memo essentially said that AI-driven productivity would replace new hires. The backlash to Duolingo is the latest evidence that 'AI-first' tends to be a concept with much more appeal to investors and managers than most regular people. And it's not hard to see why. Generative AI is often trained on reams of content that may have been illegally accessed; much of its output is bizarre or incorrect; and some leaders in the field are opposed to regulations on the technology. But outside particular niches in entry-level white-collar work, AI's productivity gains have yet to materialize. An IBM survey of 2,000 leaders found that 3 in 4 AI initiatives fail to deliver their promised ROI. A recent National Bureau of Economic Research study of 25,000 workers in AI-exposed industries found that the technology didn't make workers massively more productive and had next to no impact on earnings as well as hours. That 'this tool that's been adopted so fast, where the expectations are so high, [was] not making a difference in earnings was a surprise to me,' University of Chicago economics professor Anders Humlum, one of the NBER study authors, told Fortune. 'It seems it's a much smaller and much slower transition than you might imagine if you had just studied the technology's potential in a vacuum.' This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Duolingo CEO walks back AI-first comments: ‘I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do'
A week after declaring that AI would eventually replace contract workers at the language-learning app, Duolingo's CEO said the company was 'continuing to hire' and would support its existing workers in getting up to speed on the technology. It follows buzzy startup Klarna in backing off an AI-first promise. Language-learning app Duolingo has become the latest company to publicly temper its AI enthusiasm after a series of bold proclamations on AI replacing humans garnered severe criticism. Luis von Ahn, co-founder and CEO, took to LinkedIn on Thursday to walk back a previous stance pushing AI use over human employees. 'To be clear: I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do (we are in fact continuing to hire at the same speed as before),' he wrote. 'I see it as a tool to accelerate what we do, at the same or better level of quality. And the sooner we learn how to use it, and use it responsibly, the better off we will be in the long run.' He added, 'No one is expected to navigate this shift alone. We're developing workshops and advisory councils, and carving out dedicated experimentation time to help all our teams learn and adapt.' The clarification is a 180-degree turn from the company's position a week ago, when it declared it would 'gradually stop using contractors to do work AI can handle,' evaluate AI fluency in workers' annual reviews, and only add new employees 'if a team cannot automate more of their work.' Von Ahn also appeared to throw his weight behind AI over human teachers in a podcast appearance. Speaking on No Priors with Sarah Guo, he predicted that AI would soon be able to teach any subject, at a greater scale, and create 'better learning outcomes' than human teachers, but added that schools would continue to exist 'because you still need childcare.' The criticism flew in. On the company's popular TikTok and Instagram accounts, commenters piled on to bash AI on every recent post. (On one video where a baby owl plushie asked 'mama, may I have cookie,' the top comment read: 'mama may I have real people running the company 💔') The company even put von Ahn in his own TikTok, opposite a masked, hoodie-wearing person to explain that 'AI will allow us to reach more people.' A Duolingo spokesperson told Fortune: 'We're still growing our team, and we're training and developing our talent so they benefit from using AI.' He added, 'All AI content is created under the direction and guidance of our learning experts. We have rigorous quality standards in place to ensure that any content we publish is safe, accurate and aligned with the CEFR,' referencing an international standard to measure language ability. Duolingo's self-correction is just the latest in a recent trend. Fintech app Klarna had its own turnaround on AI last month. After publicly touting the superiority of its AI chatbot, saying it hadn't hired humans in a year, the company's CEO revealed that the 'lower quality' of the chatbot meant it would start hiring humans again after all. Shopify faced similar criticism after a memo essentially said that AI-driven productivity would replace new hires. The backlash to Duolingo is the latest evidence that 'AI-first' tends to be a concept with much more appeal to investors and managers than most regular people. And it's not hard to see why. Generative AI is often trained on reams of content that may have been illegally accessed; much of its output is bizarre or incorrect; and some leaders in the field are opposed to regulations on the technology. But outside particular niches in entry-level white-collar work, AI's productivity gains have yet to materialize. An IBM survey of 2,000 leaders found that 3 in 4 AI initiatives fail to deliver their promised ROI. A recent National Bureau of Economic Research study of 25,000 workers in AI-exposed industries found that the technology didn't make workers massively more productive and had next to no impact on earnings as well as hours. That 'this tool that's been adopted so fast, where the expectations are so high, [was] not making a difference in earnings was a surprise to me,' University of Chicago economics professor Anders Humlum, one of the NBER study authors, told Fortune. 'It seems it's a much smaller and much slower transition than you might imagine if you had just studied the technology's potential in a vacuum.' This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Entrepreneur
23-05-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Duolingo CEO Clarifies AI Stance After Backlash: Read Memo
Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn said he has already spoken to employees internally but wanted to share the summary with the public. In late April, language-learning app Duolingo made a series of AI-related announcements. CEO Luis von Ahn wrote a memo to employees detailing the company's official "AI-first" approach and how, through "advances in generative AI," it was able to double its course offerings in record time. Duolingo also said it would "gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle." Naturally, the news didn't go over well with some Duolingo employees and contract workers. After several weeks of pushback, von Ahn has clarified his previous comments (while still committing to being "AI-first") with a post on LinkedIn. Related: 'Make Chess as Accessible as Possible': Duolingo's Next Move Is Teaching Users How to Play Chess "One of the most important things leaders can do is provide clarity," von Ahn wrote. "When I released my AI memo a few weeks ago, I didn't do that well." Duolingo's CEO noted that he has "taken time to follow up internally with Duos (our employees)," and then wrote a summary of those conversations for the public. "I don't know exactly what's going to happen with AI, but I do know it's going to fundamentally change the way we work, and we have to get ahead of it," he wrote. He noted that Duolingo has always embraced new tech ("why we originally built for mobile instead of desktop," he said), and that the company is "taking that same approach with AI." Related: Klarna's CEO Used an AI Clone of Himself to Report Quarterly Earnings. Here's Why. "To be clear: I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do (we are, in fact, continuing to hire at the same speed as before)," von Ahn wrote. He ended the post stating that the company is providing AI training for employees on how to use the tech as a "tool to accelerate what we do, at the same or better level of quality." While Duolingo's CEO may be trying to calm employees' fears of being replaced by AI, Fiverr's CEO is definitely not. Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman wrote in an internal email last month (and since on X): "AI is coming for you." "It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person," Kaufman wrote. In a 2023 report, Goldman Sachs estimated that AI could automate 300 million full-time jobs. McKinsey, meanwhile, predicted that up to 375 million workers may be displaced by AI by 2030. Related: These 3 Professions Are Most Likely to Vanish in the Next 20 Years Due to AI, According to a New Report
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Duolingo Won't Add More Ads
Language learning app Duolingo could raise revenue by showing more advertisements to users of its free product. But the company's focus on long-term thinking over short-term results has led CEO Luis Von Ahn and CFO Matt Skaruppa to resist the temptation. They explain their reasoning to Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Chief Future Officer.
Bloomberg
22-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Why Duolingo Won't Add More Ads
Chief Future Officer Language learning app Duolingo could raise revenue by showing more advertisements to users of its free product. But the company's focus on long-term thinking over short-term results has led CEO Luis Von Ahn and CFO Matt Skaruppa to resist the temptation. They explain their reasoning to Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Chief Future Officer. (Source: Bloomberg)
