Duolingo, Relying More On AI, Says It Will Lay Off 10% of Its Contractors 69
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCMag: Duolingo tells Bloomberg that it's cutting 10% of its contractors, months after its CEO said Duolingo is relying more on generative AI to develop its content. "We just no longer need as many people to do the type of work some of these contractors were doing. Part of that could be attributed to AI," a Duolingo spokesperson tells Bloomberg.
This comes after an unnamed Duolingo contractor claimed on Reddit that Duolingo had axed a large number of jobs. "In December 2023, Duolingo 'off boarded' a huge percentage of their contractors who did translations," the contractor wrote. "Of course this is because they figured out that AI can do these translations in a fraction of the time. Plus it saves them money." The contractor claims to have worked at Duolingo for five years in a four-member team. But now the team has been cut in half as AI has taken over the duties of generating content and translation for courses on Duolingo. "The two who remained will just review AI content to make sure it's acceptable," the contractor added. A Duolingo spokesperson tells PCMag, "these are not layoffs," since the contractors were "offboarded as their projects wrapped up at the end of 2023."
"While we do use AI for many different purposes at Duolingo, including the generation of some course content, human experts are still very involved in the creation of Duolingo's content. I also want to note that we attempted to find alternate roles for each contractor before off-boarding as a last resort."
This comes after an unnamed Duolingo contractor claimed on Reddit that Duolingo had axed a large number of jobs. "In December 2023, Duolingo 'off boarded' a huge percentage of their contractors who did translations," the contractor wrote. "Of course this is because they figured out that AI can do these translations in a fraction of the time. Plus it saves them money." The contractor claims to have worked at Duolingo for five years in a four-member team. But now the team has been cut in half as AI has taken over the duties of generating content and translation for courses on Duolingo. "The two who remained will just review AI content to make sure it's acceptable," the contractor added. A Duolingo spokesperson tells PCMag, "these are not layoffs," since the contractors were "offboarded as their projects wrapped up at the end of 2023."
"While we do use AI for many different purposes at Duolingo, including the generation of some course content, human experts are still very involved in the creation of Duolingo's content. I also want to note that we attempted to find alternate roles for each contractor before off-boarding as a last resort."
Next: Google knockoff using Google Bard/Translate (Score:3)
Re:Next: Google knockoff using Google Bard/Transla (Score:5, Insightful)
The future of language learning with humans removed looks bright ... until you actually get to talk to real people
This.
/.er but compared to Duolingo, talking to real people is much more rewarding.
Duolingo and others are good for teaching a bit of vocabulary but as soon as you're in a real conversation you're lost. This is long before we start introducing slang, regional dialects, incorrect usage based on habit or popular culture and other artefacts. Because we use language to communicate with other people, people (and experience) will remain the best teachers. I've always considered something like Duolingo to be a teaching aid rather than a teacher replacement and even then the constant gamification annoys me that I usually give up on it within a few weeks.
I'm as anti-social as the next
Re:Next: Google knockoff using Google Bard/Transla (Score:5, Insightful)
I've used it daily for years (but only a few minutes a day). The problem for me with Duolingo is it often doesn't give sufficient context for vocabulary, and if you switch to your browser to look up a word elsewhere, you risk the OS killing the app and losing your lesson progress (on my Android tablet at least). An example would be that it recently introduced the German word "Raum" to me, translated as "room", but didn't explain or give enough context to understand where you would use "Raum" rather than "Zimmer", the word always translated as "room" up to that point. Since they killed the lesson comments, you can't look there for context any more either. So yeah, you can use Duolingo to guide your learning, but you definitely need other resources in addition.
On the topic, I'm not sure AI-generated content is going to be great for, but I guess it depends what exactly they use AI for, so I'll try to remain open-minded on that.
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Zimmer is specifically a single room in a house. Raum can mean either that, or any kind of space.
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Yeah, I'm sure he realises that already (he would have searched by now). The point is that Duolingo gives you none of that helpful context, it just gives you a one-word English equivalent, which is "room" in both cases.
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Yeah, I'm sure he realises that already (he would have searched by now). The point is that Duolingo gives you none of that helpful context, it just gives you a one-word English equivalent, which is "room" in both cases.
It's NOT teaching you the english translation of room, the translations are to assist your learning, it's not teaching you to translate German, it's teaching you German. It's teaching you the new German word in today's lesson - Raum. Zimmer will be in a later lesson. This is like first grade vocabulary, and picking one word off your kid's homework and asking why they have to write home ten times if they haven't learned house yet. If you want to learn vocabulary in dictionary order, pick up a dictionary, if
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Stepping stone (Score:2)
IMHO Duolingo's primary role is to get you competent enough to start reading books, listening to audiobooks, watching Tv/movies, or optimally interacting with native speakers in your target language. It's only a steppingstone, and progress requires you to eventually step beyond it.
Re: Next: Google knockoff using Google Bard/Transl (Score:1)
You haven't mastered Spanish, until you can understand what the women are saying, while you're waiting with them, to check out, at a food market.
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I've noticed the same issue with another language, but it doesn't bother me that much. But there is one improvement that I would like to see.
- Ability to pick a theme of words and then practice those alone, without using full sentences, because that would be much faster. It is nice to be able to say full sentences, but if you don't have enough words to say what you want, it is meaningless. E.g. I can say "That blue dress", but I don't know the word for yellow or purple.
That being said, I think that Duolingo
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I've used it daily for years (but only a few minutes a day). The problem for me with Duolingo is it often doesn't give sufficient context for vocabulary, and if you switch to your browser to look up a word elsewhere, you risk the OS killing the app and losing your lesson progress (on my Android tablet at least). An example would be that it recently introduced the German word "Raum" to me, translated as "room", but didn't explain or give enough context to understand where you would use "Raum" rather than "Zimmer", the word always translated as "room" up to that point. Since they killed the lesson comments, you can't look there for context any more either. So yeah, you can use Duolingo to guide your learning, but you definitely need other resources in addition.
That's nothing, the Spanish lessons are just "Spanish", but think how big the Spanish speaking world is. It's like folding Australian, British, Canadian, American all into "English". Different words are used for things inside just Mexico like camion, camioneta, troca, just like there are different conventions between US states like soda, pop, coke. Or inside a state, like tank/pond in west Texas.
When you're still learning words like "room" I think the goal is mainly cramming as much new vocabulary as you ca
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I don't think this is AI-dependent at all. It's more about how to teach a language, which Duolingo fails at. Duolingo teaches you words, but gives you no context / theory behind them. It teaches you bits of grammar, but not the actual grammar rules, and it does so in a disparate manner (e.g., if you try to learn Spanish it may teach you verb conjugation of the verb "estar" for "yo/tu", and then a few lessons down the road, "el/ella", and then more lessons after for the plural, when the concept of present tense + a verb should be taught all at the same time).
I have no doubt AI (down the line) can be good at detecting errors, and when you ask it why, explain using known grammar rules. Duolingo though? Naaah, that thing needs to revamp how it thinks about teaching language.
Admittedly I haven't used it in a few years but this is why I usually give up on Duolingo, if you don't use it every day you lose points (or whatever they're called) and pushed back, so I'm repeating the same lessons over and over, I know what a manzana is and how to use it let me progress without having to re-learn all the basics.
Google Translate is pretty good at basic translation like "where is the bank" but useless at conversational translations, it still struggles on slang and regional variations. I
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I do enjoy the anti-social network aspects of Duolingo, however, where you can only post pre-authored congratulations. It's like FB but w/o the chitchat. I find that if you ignore the gamification, it's much better. Even though it seems to result in being given x2 points for the next 15 minutes constan
Re:Next: Google knockoff using Google Bard/Transla (Score:4, Funny)
Have you bot talk to my bot and we'll do lunch.
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Hallucination is not much of a problem in this environment. The AI just needs to either generate some sentences for learning a language, or translate it from one language to other, or analyze user statistics. If you validate the results and fix minor errors, there is no issue.
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Google knockoff using Google Bard/Translate
One can easily do that with ChatGPT already. Just suitably fill the "Custom instructions" fields to turn it into a language teacher and it's good enough to make one acquainted with the basics of any major language.
It can do more advanced stuff too. I have an autistic friend who has a deep incapacity to understand non-autistic interactions, so I developed a set of instructions that allows him to type what someone said and what he understood of it, and ChatGPT "translates" that into autistic for him.
In 5 to 1
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Then support open-source AI as a counterpoint to the monopolization of AI by megacorps.
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It's here. Go to Huggingface and start browsing.
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Duolingo was started to provide free education for poor people to help them get out of poverty. Sounds pretty evil plan.
hmmm.. (Score:2)
If machines do all the thinking. Humans will be available for cannon fodder.
There will be more of this in 2024 (Score:2)
It's only the beginning.
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Estas despedido
Tu es viré
Du bist gefeuert
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"As we say in West Texas, get the fuck out of my office!"
AI will make the education crisis worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:AI will make the education crisis worse (Score:5, Insightful)
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You know that pays around $15-$20/hr right? (Score:3)
There's a handful of guys working on large building AC that make good money. They're used to skew the stats. Everyone else tops out around $20/hr. Those building AC jobs are few and far between and require so many certs you might as well have got your engineering degree, especially since these days you're going to be competing with H1-Bs here with engineering degrees anyway.
The Automation boom, which has been full stea [businessinsider.com]
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and that's still less then what "fight for $15" wanted in 2009 inflation adjusted? There's a handful of guys working on large building AC that make good money. They're used to skew the stats. Everyone else tops out around $20/hr. Those building AC jobs are few and far between and require so many certs you might as well have got your engineering degree, especially since these days you're going to be competing with H1-Bs here with engineering degrees anyway. The Automation boom, which has been full steam since the 80s [businessinsider.com], isn't a problem you can solve by pretending it's not there. We are actually going to have to make structural changes to our economy or we're going to descend into neo-Feudalism with a tiny oligarchy, an equally tiny servant class for that oligarchy and 98% of the population living in squalor held down by modern militaries and surveillance tech.
While I don't disagree with this even a little, how do we even have a discussion about making structural changes to the economy. The owner class set their own rules at this point. And if they can't just outright make it happen, they'll buy enough politicians to make it happen. And the owner class likes where they are today. Profits climbing year over year, people be damned.
This won't change until enough of the electorate is out of work that no politician can win a seat by fighting for "the economy," which t
You don't discuss it with them (Score:2)
In practice though actual violent revolution doesn't end well. You need people who are good at violence to win and people good at violence aren't so good at giving up power when the shooting stops...
So we're all gonna wait around until the boomers age out of voting, leaving everyone else completely broke like post Depression America, and we'll get a New New Deal at the ballot box.
It's either that that neo-feudalism I mentioned earlier...
Re: AI will make the education crisis worse (Score:2)
The introduction of the automobile caused more disruption and displacement than AI will cause.
Go on. Change my mind.
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While the introduction of the automobile did indeed cause significant disruption and displacement, I believe that AI has the potential to be far more disruptive and transformative. Here are some key reasons why:
1. The scope of AI is far broader than the automobile.
The automobile revolutionized transportation, but it is a single industry with relatively limited impact on other sectors. AI, on the other hand, has the potential to disrupt a wide range of industries, from manufacturing and healthcare to finance
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the justification for going to college was to afford all those overpriced McMansions
You are doing it wrong.
This time, it's different (Score:2)
Those contractors did not have to teach their replacements a thing.
Off-boarding? (Score:2)
Fuck you so much, "A Duolingo spokesperson".
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Whenever I hear "on-boarding" it gets changed to "waterboarding." I think "off-boarding" will just get changed to "walk the plank."
How do you "lay off a contractor"? (Score:1)
...A top reason co's rent contractors is so they don't have to fire staff; employment is come and go. Did their bot write this? If so, get the humans back now!
Topic of the day: Despair (Score:3)
I never understood that argument (Score:2)
You do realize that they need like 1 repairman for every 1000 robots (if that) right?
I guess it's a mental health defense mechanism to avoid thinking about it. Kinda like how when the nerd economy collapsed in the early to mid 2000s outsourcing boom every one of my nerd friends was gonna just "get their MCSE and get outta here!".
Nothing to see here, remember? (Score:4, Funny)
Folks...folks...let's settle down now. All of the "experts" reassured us meatsacks who need to be employed in order to survive that there's nothing to see here. AI couldn't possibly have a measurable impact on human employment.
Oh, and the American economy is actually doing good too. If it still looks bad to you, just "comparison" it until it doesn't.
If you need any more help kids, Kamala will be downstairs hitting the bong.
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By what metric is the US economy doing poorly? Inflation is now back to normal. Unemployment is low. Job growth continues apace. Market indices are nearing or passed records. Where is this economic disaster? There was a problem, but that's in past tense.
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Re:Nothing to see here, remember? (Score:4)
Everything costs double, wages have been halved, the market record is worth half as much, debt is skyrocketing: the bill is in the mail.
According to the consumer price index, everything costs twice what it did... in 1995. If your wages haven't doubled since 1995, you have only yourself to blame for voting for politicians who are opposed to minimum wage increases. In blue states, median wages have actually done slightly better than that. Yes, the cost is up compared with low-single-digit years ago, but not by nearly as much as you're claiming, and if you're seeing that the cost of goods and services has doubled recently, that's a clear sign that workers in your area were severely underpaid before, and they had to raise wages a lot to get people to come back to work after the pandemic. That's entirely the fault of leadership at your local and state level, and isn't a national problem at all.
The Dow is at its highest in history, the NASDAQ is down only 8%, Republicans won't let Democrats raise taxes to keep debt under control, and their target for spending cuts is the very department that brings in money for the government, which means the debt can only get worse. Not sure how much it really matters, though, so long as their ignorant political hostage-taking behavior (repeatedly shutting the government down to get budget concessions) doesn't put us at risk of defaulting on our debt again.
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If your wages haven't doubled since 1995, you have only yourself to blame for voting for politicians who are opposed to minimum wage increases.
I mean this as sincerely as possible. Fuck you.
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if you're seeing that the cost of goods and services has doubled recently, that's a clear sign that workers in your area were severely underpaid before, and they had to raise wages a lot to get people to come back to work after the pandemic. That's entirely the fault of leadership at your local and state level, and isn't a national problem at all.
Can you explain why costs of goods on shelves increase almost instantly anytime the price of a gallon of fuel in the US increases by more than 50 cents, long before COVID was born?
Stop pretending this kind of corruption was invented recently, or that the answer is that simple. Wages increase, and problems remain. That is the reality. Politics is the sideshow entertainment designed to keep you convinced finger pointing is the answer, after convincing you to put on that cheerleader uniform and pick a team
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It's true, inflation is down even if they don't play with the numbers using CPI, etc., which they do. It's not down to pre-pandemic levels, but is within reason. The problem is that wages and GDP have not increased to match cumulative increase in prices/costs. So, workers effectively make less than they did just a few years ago.
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By what metric is the US economy doing poorly?
When you start asking average Americans that question, you'll get a real answer. Not the shit you keep hearing from politicians needing to sell you a good time.
When families discuss their difficulties of affording the food or the table to put it on, no one is talking about "market indices".
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Inflation is lower but not zero or negative. The prices of everything is still very high and outstripped the rise in salaries.
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Nobody is targeting zero-or-negative inflation, because that's harmful to the economy.
A small, steady amount of inflation slowly reduces the impact of debt and encourages spending rather than hoarding cash.
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Folks...folks...let's settle down now. All of the "experts" reassured us meatsacks who need to be employed in order to survive that there's nothing to see here. AI couldn't possibly have a measurable impact on human employment.
Those experts are fools.
Delivery drivers, bus/cab/rideshare drivers, cooks, manufacturing workers, farm workers, order takers, and many other similar jobs are likely to go away entirely. The number of people needed for other jobs is going to go down, with AI making the work easier &mdash the diagnostic work from doctors, the research work done by lawyers and paralegals, etc. will be easily replaced by AI trained in specific fields within the next few years, though it may take longer before you can blin
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Folks...folks...let's settle down now. All of the "experts" reassured us meatsacks who need to be employed in order to survive that there's nothing to see here. AI couldn't possibly have a measurable impact on human employment.
Those experts are fools.
Delivery drivers, bus/cab/rideshare drivers, cooks, manufacturing workers, farm workers, order takers, and many other similar jobs are likely to go away entirely. The number of people needed for other jobs is going to go down, with AI making the work easier &mdash the diagnostic work from doctors, the research work done by lawyers and paralegals, etc. will be easily replaced by AI trained in specific fields within the next few years, though it may take longer before you can blindly rely on it without verifying things. And so on.
The only way that can happen without reducing employment would be if new jobs came into existence to replace old ones, and there aren't really any new categories of jobs on the horizon that I can't imagine being done by AI within a couple of decades. I mean, to some degree, people would like the human element of being able to talk to an actual person, and AI can't really provide the companionship aspect, so maybe some service industry jobs might stick around simply because of consumer pressure to do so, but that's going to mostly be a "because customers demand it" situation rather than a "because AI can't do it more cheaply" situation.
Oh, and the American economy is actually doing good too. If it still looks bad to you, just "comparison" it until it doesn't.
If it looks bad to you, that suggests to me that you're using your feelings and/or the opinions of people who are trying to manipulate you, rather than any actual analysis. The American economy is doing very well [whitehouse.gov] according to the usual metrics. GDP is back to steady growth. Unemployment is back to pre-pandemic levels nearly the lowest this century (3.7% last year versus 3.6% in 2019 and 3.9% in 2000, considerably higher most other years). The pandemic-induced supply chain collapse has mostly resolved itself, which has brought inflation back under control. Wages are growing, and wage inequality is decreasing. And so on.
Even the labor force participation rate [stlouisfed.org] is back up to pre-pandemic levels, though the mass retirement of baby boomers throughout the Bush and Obama years means that it is still way lower than at the start of the decade, but that's mostly because we aren't having enough kids to replace the people retiring.
And there's more spending on building manufacturing plants than we've seen at any point since the 1950s, which means we're genuinely recognizing the downsides of excessive globalization and are getting our house in order somewhat.
So every metric I've seen points to a relatively solid economy, or at least the most solid we've had in my lifetime. So what metrics are you looking at?
Here's the problem with current economic indicators. And yes, I know, the owner class and the business world ARE the economy, and the people living in the country play zero factor in that round of statistics. But? Living in the country as part of the middle class, we watch prices for literally EVERYTHING increasing month by month, and sometimes week by week. And we're continually told that the economy is doing great, and profits are up across the board. Yet wages stay steady, which is effectively a pay cut.
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Here's the problem with current economic indicators. And yes, I know, the owner class and the business world ARE the economy, and the people living in the country play zero factor in that round of statistics. But? Living in the country as part of the middle class, we watch prices for literally EVERYTHING increasing month by month, and sometimes week by week.
See here's the thing. The reason those prices are going up is because workers were so massively underpaid before that a lot of the working poor were saying, "Screw it, I'm not going to bother working for so little." So restaurant owners weren't able to find workers, and they couldn't keep the doors open. In response, they reluctantly raised wages, which raised the cost of goods and services. That, coupled with having more jobs than people in many locations and/or fields (thanks to more people retiring
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The middle class always takes it on the chin for a while during inflationary periods. The wealthy don't care about the cost, because they can afford it, and the poor getting paid more is usually the driver behind it, so they mostly do okay as well. But at least initially, the middle class don't get paid more, and it takes a while for their wages to catch up, though they eventually do.
Before I respond to this bit of preposterousness: I don't follow right wing media. I'm not a "conservative." I'm a person looking at his own financial situation and the financial situation of those around him and seeing it's all fucking bollocks. It's been bollocks for forty years, so don't bother trying to spin this into, "You just hate Biden and Democrats." I've been being told the middle class "always catches up eventually" since Reagan was in office. It hasn't happened yet. Continually, the upper 10-5%
Are they using AI already? (Score:3)
If you know anything about Duolingo, it uses some pretty crazy examples [youtube.com] when teaching. Hopefully the contractors weren't the ones plugging in these lines.
Re: Are they using AI already? (Score:2)
Unfortunately, they're all but gone now. There were always criticisms that those sentences were offending some, and made the app less suitable for children. So, in the name of ever present and popular infantilisation, all edges have been trimmed off and any sentence which anyone could conceivably dislike was removed.
They also deleted their most interesti
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Does the owl still threaten to kidnap your family and sell them to trafickers if you don't do your lessons?
The future... (Score:2)
The future of all PR will be "$company is laying off $percent of staff and $random_tech will be used", I honestly think a calculation is being made of staff cuts and generated PR as a result. If that fails to grab eyeballs, the pepper of blurb words should get some attention.
In reality the added "AI" will need checking so they should be growing the workforce, not shrinking it.
I may be splitting hairs here... (Score:2)
I may be splitting hairs here, but... I mean companies often rely on contractors specifically because they don't have to deal with employer / employee obligations. It's far simpler!
And while I don't think that takes away from the underpinning point here, it just suggests it's not newsworthy. If the relationship between a business and the person completing the work is as simple as work done, X dollars, then it makes complete sense that said company would try to find a way to get work done for the least amo