In late April, language-learning app Duolingo made a sequence of AI-related announcements. CEO Luis von Ahn wrote a memo to staff detailing the corporate’s official “AI-first” method and the way, by “advances in generative AI,” it was in a position to double its course choices in report time. Duolingo additionally mentioned it could “progressively cease utilizing contractors to do work that AI can deal with.”
Naturally, the information didn’t go over well with some Duolingo staff and contract employees. After a number of weeks of pushback, von Ahn has clarified his earlier feedback (whereas nonetheless committing to being “AI-first”) with a post on LinkedIn.
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“Some of the necessary issues leaders can do is present readability,” von Ahn wrote. “Once I launched my AI memo just a few weeks in the past, I did not try this properly.”
Duolingo’s CEO famous that he has “taken time to comply with up internally with Duos (our staff),” after which wrote a abstract of these conversations for the general public.
“I do not know precisely what is going on to occur with AI, however I do know it may basically change the best way we work, and now we have to get forward of it,” he wrote.
He famous that Duolingo has at all times embraced new tech (“why we initially constructed for cellular as a substitute of desktop,” he mentioned), and that the corporate is “taking that very same method with AI.”
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“To be clear: I don’t see AI as changing what our staff do (we’re, actually, persevering with to rent on the identical velocity as earlier than),” von Ahn wrote.
He ended the submit stating that the corporate is offering AI coaching for workers on use the tech as a “software to speed up what we do, on the identical or higher degree of high quality.”
Whereas Duolingo’s CEO could also be making an attempt to calm staff’ fears of being changed by AI, Fiverr’s CEO is definitely not.
Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman wrote in an inside electronic mail final month (and since on X): “AI is coming for you.”
“It doesn’t matter in case you are a programmer, designer, product supervisor, knowledge scientist, lawyer, buyer assist rep, salesperson, or a finance individual,” Kaufman wrote.
In a 2023 report, Goldman Sachs estimated that AI may automate 300 million full-time jobs. McKinsey, in the meantime, predicted that up to 375 million workers could also be displaced by AI by 2030.
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