The growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) is taking a toll on the workforce at the owner of the popular language learning app Duolingo. The company told Bloomberg it was cutting 10% of its staff, just months after its chief executive said Duolingo was relying more on generative AI to develop its content.
Earlier, an anonymous Duolingo employee reported on Reddit that Duolingo had cut a large number of jobs. He said that in December 2023, Duolingo cut a large percentage of their translation contractors. This was because the company realized that AI could do these translations in a short period of time and also save money.
The Redditor said he worked at Duolingo for five years in a team of four. But now the team has been cut in half as AI takes over the task of creating content and translating for Duolingo courses. He described the remaining two people as only reviewing the AI content to make sure it's acceptable.
Duolingo is ditching human translators in favor of AI
Meanwhile, speaking to PC Mag , a Duolingo spokesperson said these are not layoffs, as the staff were due to end their projects at the end of 2023. He said the company had tried to find replacement roles for each employee before the shutdown, and human experts are still heavily involved in creating Duolingo's content.
Duolingo's job cuts are sparking a debate on Reddit about whether the company is justified in using AI to replace jobs once done by humans. Concerns are growing about creative AI taking away jobs. OpenAI's ChatGPT and other chatbots have shown the technology can write articles, create professional artwork, narrate content in multiple voices, and even write computer code.
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