Duolingo To Phase Out Human Contractors And Replace Them With AI

Duolingo has announced that it will “gradually stop using contractors to do work that artificial intelligence (AI) can handle”, according to an email sent by co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn. The language-learning platform will be pivoting to an “AI-first” approach as it aims to scale its business.

The company justified its switch in approach, stating that it had taken a similar call in 2012 by betting big on mobile.

“I’ve said this in Q&As and many meetings, but I want to make it official: Duolingo is going to be Al-first. Al is already changing how work gets done. It’s not a question of if or when. It’s happening now,” said Mr Von Ahn in the all-hands memo, posted on Duolingo’s LinkedIn page.

He added that “Duolingo will remain a company that cares deeply about its employees” and that “this isn’t about replacing Duos with AI”.

Apart from not using contractors anymore, Duolingo will use AI to evaluate performance reviews. Additionally, headcounts will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work.

“AI isn’t just a productivity boost. It helps us get closer to our mission. To teach well, we need to create a massive amount of content, and doing that manually doesn’t scale.”

“One of the best decisions we made recently was replacing a slow, manual content creation process with one powered by AI. Without AI, it would take us decades to scale our content to more learners. We owe it to our learners to get them this content ASAP.”

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Social media reacts

Reacting to the news, a section of social media users called out Duolingo for taking away real jobs, while others said it was only a matter of time before corporations took such a route.

“What a great way to ruin the public perception it created with their social media,” said one user while another added: “When a CEO says they want more AI or to focus on AI? It translates to: “I want more money, in my bank account.”

A third commented: “It’s a big change, but I dunno, people will get over it. For now, it’s new and that’s why there’s some unintentional hypocrisy.”

Earlier this month, Tobi Lutke, the CEO of Canadian e-commerce website Shopify, also announced that teams wouldn’t be allowed to hire more workers unless they could prove that the task couldn’t be completed using AI.