Duolingo introduced plans this week to interchange contractors with AI and develop into an “AI-first” firm — a transfer that journalist Brian Merchant pointed to as an indication that the AI jobs disaster “is right here, now.”
In reality, Merchant spoke to a former Duolingo contractor who mentioned this isn’t even a brand new coverage. The firm reduce round 10% of its contractor workforce on the finish of 2023, and Merchant mentioned there was one other spherical of cuts in October 2024. In each circumstances, contractors (first translators, then writers) have been changed with AI.
Merchant additionally famous reporting in The Atlantic across the unusually excessive unemployment price for latest school graduates. One clarification? Companies is likely to be changing entry-level white collar jobs with AI, or their spending on AI may merely be “crowding out” the spending for brand new hires.
This disaster, Merchant wrote, is admittedly “a collection of administration choices being made by executives searching for to chop labor prices and consolidate management of their organizations,” and it’s manifesting as “attrition in artistic industries, the declining revenue of freelance artists, writers, and illustrators, and in firms’ inclination to easily rent fewer human staff.”
“The AI jobs disaster isn’t any type 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.
