Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based Duolingo, an educational technology company that produces learning apps and provides language certification, has announced a ten percent reduction in its translator contractors as it adopts generative AI translations for its language-learning platform.
According to a company spokesperson, "No full-time employees were affected by the layoffs and the company no longer need as many contract employees, mostly quality checkers for the AI translations." The company noted that not all layoffs were due to technology adoption."
CEO Luis von Ahn has noted, “Generative AI is accelerating our work by helping us create new content dramatically faster.
"We are not swapping the expertise of human experts for AI. AI is a tool we are using to increase productivity and efficiency, to add new content, and improve our courses faster so that we can continue to teach to higher levels of proficiency.”
Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?