Duolingo introduced plans this week to switch contractors with AI and develop into an “AI-first” firm — a transfer that journalist Brian Service provider pointed to as an indication that the AI jobs disaster “is right here, now.”
Actually, Service provider spoke to a former Duolingo contractor who stated this isn’t even a brand new coverage. The corporate minimize round 10% of its contractor workforce on the finish of 2023, and Service provider stated there was one other spherical of cuts in October 2024. In each instances, contractors (first translators, then writers) have been changed with AI.
Service provider additionally famous reporting in The Atlantic round the unusually excessive unemployment charge for current school graduates. One rationalization? Firms may be changing entry-level white collar jobs with AI, or their spending on AI would possibly merely be “crowding out” the spending for brand spanking new hires.
This disaster, Service provider wrote, is absolutely “a collection of administration selections being made by executives searching for to chop labor prices and consolidate management of their organizations,” and it’s manifesting as “attrition in inventive industries, the declining revenue of freelance artists, writers, and illustrators, and in companies’ inclination to easily rent fewer human staff.”
“The AI jobs disaster isn’t any kind of SkyNet-esque robotic jobs apocalypse — it’s DOGE firing tens of 1000’s of federal workers whereas waving the banner of ‘an AI-first technique,’” he added.
