Duolingo boss Luis von Ahn is still fighting to contain a months-long row over his push to make the language-learning app “AI-first," this week arguing that criticism of the plan stemmed from confusion over his remarks.
Luis von Ahn, founder of the language learning app, said he "did not give enough context" when he announced the initiative
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Duolingo boss Luis von Ahn is still fighting to contain a months-long row over his push to make the language-learning app “AI-first," this week arguing that criticism of the plan stemmed from confusion over his remarks.
Luis von Ahn told The New York Times that the backlash was “on me," adding: “I did not give enough context. Internally, this was not controversial.”
Von Ahn continued: “Externally, as a publicly traded company some people assume that it’s just for profit. Or that we’re trying to lay off humans. And that was not the intent at all.”
His latest comments mark another attempt to walk back a controversy that began in April, when he posted an all-hands company email saying he would phase out contractors if AI could do their work and allow teams to hire a new person only if they were unable to automate the work with the technology. The email drew hundreds of comments, many from users worried about what that meant for the company’s employees — and for their 1,000-day streaks.
In the latest interview, von Ahn said the company has “never laid off any full-time employees” and that he does not intend to. He also suggested that while AI has reduced its contractor headcount, that part of the company's workforce has always “gone up and down depending on needs."
Still, he added: “In the next five years, people’s jobs will probably change. We’re seeing it with many of our engineers. They may not be doing some rote tasks anymore. What will probably happen is that one person will be able to accomplish more, rather than having fewer people.”
Currently, the company asks workers to take one day a week to experiment with it.
He said: “Every Friday morning, we have this thing: It’s a bad acronym, f-r-A-I-days. I don’t know how to pronounce it. Those mornings, we let each team experiment on how to get more efficient to use A.I.”
The interview marks von Ahn’s latest attempt to ease the backlash. In June, he told The Financial Times that the move was “just a mind shift that people first try AI. … It may be that AI doesn’t actually solve the problem you’re trying to solve.”
Still, Duolingo, which has over 10 million paying subscribers, will be incorporating AI across the company, from content creation to internal tools. Von Ahn said that with AI, adding a language offering, which was once a labor-intensive process, could soon be done in a fraction of the time.
“You no longer do the details and are more of a creative director,” he told The FT. “For the vast majority of jobs, this is what’s going to happen.”
—Shannon Carroll contributed to this article.
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