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Luis von Ahn says criticism over strategy change shows ‘anxiety’ about technology replacing jobs

Archived version: https://archive.is/20250608171624/https://www.ft.com/content/6fbafbb6-bafe-484c-9af9-f0ffb589b447

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[–] yarr@feddit.nl 4 points 1 hour ago

CEOs are rich enough to live in their own delusional bubble. They are very out of touch with the average person, or their own workforce. This is nothing new.

[–] waywardninja@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Cancelled my sub when I found that out. Switched to busuu, comparing the two, busuu and Duolingo seem to have different teachings and I noticed that my ability to understand things (comments) in duo is slowly becoming paywalled on the pro(paid) version... Wtf??! Quality of lessons is also seemingly going down.

Then I heard they are handing user data to ICE (maybe this is a rumor) but it just pushed me away even quicker.

[–] stringere@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

Try Language Transfer. It's a very different approach from rote memorization.

[–] cornshark@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

They don't appear to be sharing any data with ICE. The Mozilla Foundation issued a report saying defence contractors were assembling dossiers from publicly available data, including duolingo data.

https://cyberinsider.com/mozilla-calls-for-action-to-stop-surveillance-firms-data-scraping/

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 16 points 7 hours ago

Lemme rephrase that for ya mate:

"I did not anticipate people getting angry that i turned the program into a complete steaming pile of useless shit"

It's not the children who are wrong.

[–] tane6@lemm.ee 20 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

CEOs are overall just not smart and we need to stop that belief

[–] Muffi@programming.dev 4 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Is there really a single person of this belief, after the whole HBO name-change stupidity? That is still among the worst business and branding decisions I have ever seen.

[–] yarr@feddit.nl 2 points 1 hour ago

"Well if they are so dumb why do they have so much money???"

[–] tane6@lemm.ee 5 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

I would argue that it is one of the most deeply held American beliefs even if it’s not talked about openly. Successful people are almost always viewed as intelligent by default. Despite all evidence to the contrary.

People STILL call Elon a genius ffs

[–] grober_Unfug@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 9 hours ago

„AI is creating uncertainty for all of us, and we can respond to this with fear or curiosity.“

How about we respond to this with reason?

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 5 points 8 hours ago

Of course he didn't expect the blowback. All of the CEOs are in their own little worlds trying to figure out how to make money off of AI. They're all taking their personal money and investing heavily in AI corporations, so they're all very pro AI and couldn't understand why your average person who is pretty sure it's going to make their life worse through jobs or other means would be anti-AI.

[–] ech@lemm.ee 54 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Luis von Ahn says criticism over strategy change shows ‘anxiety’ about technology replacing jobs

Motherfucker, you're the one that fired slews of employees to be replaced by text-prediction algorithms. It's not "anxiety", you're fucking doing it.

[–] raltoid@lemmy.world 14 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Yeah, he learned nothing. He's just upset that everyone didn't agree with him.

He's going to keep pushing the same nonsense as soon as the attention blows over, and he'll be just as surprised when it goes bad.

[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 22 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Fire that CEO, he's an idiot.

[–] creation7758@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago

Better yet, replace them with ai. Don't need to pay someone 300x of an average workers wage just to take bad decisions

[–] Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 12 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

If you have ever been to any major SLT or higher meeting, the phrases "This is the first time I am hearing about that" or "That's not what was reported to me" come up so much that I'm amazed the meetings even finish on time. Plausible deniability of the name of the game.

[–] BigPotato@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago

I said "I sent a video recording of this a month ago and received confirmation. Do you not have that?" and got back "I never got that."

"Alright, got it. Thankfully it's not my problem anymore but you know where yours is." and left it at that.

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

That's true and this is not an example of such a situation, because he knew exactly what the reaction was going to be. He probably felt that he could ride that AI bubble away from it, but he knew the reaction was waiting for him.

The other thing about that claim, when it could possibly be credible, is it means that essentially the boss is not qualified to do their job. The one thing they should have done is been chatting with ordinary workers or customers to see what the actual needs are, and they're admitting it to somehow deflect from a bad decision they made but in doing so they've unwittingly shown that they're basically incompetent at their entire job.

[–] Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 hours ago

I think you misunderstood my meaning. They know. They've known all along. They simply think that saying they don't know and throwing everyone below them under the bus is fine because it's accepted in the business culture here. The CEO is always right because even when they aren't, bonus still gets deposited.

[–] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 4 points 9 hours ago

Still not installing it, Luis.

[–] ooli3@sopuli.xyz 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I Uninstalled. And use Memrise now, it is very fun with video of people to understand the word better

[–] Muffi@programming.dev 2 points 6 hours ago

I also made the switch to Memrise. Its great! Actually a platform made for learning and not just a game disguised as learning.

They also have an option for a lifetime purchase instead of a running subsciption, which I am a huge fan of.

[–] Fingolfinz@lemmy.world 26 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

AI could easily replace ceos

[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 12 hours ago

Seriously - LLMs are much more adequate to do a CEO's job than an engineer's. Maybe the crazied scramble to push AI "features" into products is to distract customers, workers and shareholders from this fact?

[–] jontree255@lemmy.world 123 points 23 hours ago

”I’m out of touch with reality” - another dipshit rich guy.

[–] brandon@piefed.social 35 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

It's hardly surprising that these people are out of touch when they're constantly surrounded in a bubble of yes-men, cultish AI sycophants, VC investors and other "dark enlightenment" enthusiasts.

It's a pathology, really. A kind of shared delusion in service of global capital.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 3 points 7 hours ago

christ i hate the term "dark enlightenment" more and more it's being used to be an "inevitable" and romanticised spin to reactionary bullshit, stupidity and panic

[–] rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 53 points 21 hours ago

Anti-human little creep, I uninstalled and cancelled my subscription as soon as I heard the news

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 95 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (2 children)

That's a plain and simple admission that you are incompetent at your job. You should resign not post puff pieces at FT...

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 30 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I feel like the only job AI would be better suited at would be CEO.

[–] Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 9 points 19 hours ago

I mean, they take in current hype, change a few words and then regurgitate it with slightly different words.

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[–] Tronn4@lemmy.world 12 points 17 hours ago

Well prime example of a ceo making a stupid ass mistake. He should be replaced and bonuses removed.

[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 49 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Way to reinforce the stereotype, out-of-touch rich dude. Most people who actually work for a living see no benefit from AI, and resent it being shoved into every single product, whether it makes sense or not. Oh well, at least you can burn boatloads of VC money while also destroying the environment and abusing intellectual property to train it!

[–] vala@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

LLM are actually moderatly useful in my line of work but I still think they are super unethical and terrible, ungodly things.

[–] AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 6 points 16 hours ago

I work for an AI company and even we thought what he said was stupid. I hope he gets what he deserves...but unfortunately I don't know if that's how capitalism in America works as of late.

[–] Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 5 points 15 hours ago

Because ceos habe lost all their touch with reality (if they ever had any)

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 22 points 22 hours ago (4 children)

Look at his old amas on Reddit to see what kind of guy he is. He's always been a prick.

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[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 14 points 20 hours ago

He vomited an assumption on how people would react, and acted on it. The outcome of his actions proved the assumption wrong. At this stage, a sane / rational person would step back and say "...perhaps I should inform myself". But no, this bloody muppet had to vomit yet another assumption - why their reaction was negative. *rolls eyes*

shows 'anxiety' about technology replacing jobs

No, it’s because over the last few years you’ve made your app progressively worse and worse. Almost the entire time I’ve been using this app I’ve seen it get worse and worse. And it’s clear that your push for AI has made it a more boring way to learn.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 3 points 16 hours ago

A serious three-step questionnaire for any subscription service considering AI:

  1. Could your paid centralized service be accomplished by free local models?

  2. Yes it could.

  3. Don't ruin your thing with cloud AI bullshit.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 14 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

“I have too much money!”

“I think much too highly of myself!”

“I’m a complete bastard!”

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 1 points 7 hours ago

Bet he's got white pants

[–] shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 12 points 22 hours ago

Then you're a fucking idiot, anyone could see it coming.

[–] ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 12 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (2 children)

The Tech CEO Bubble is real and one of the most harmful, even if it doesn't get talked about like our respective political bubbles, geographical bubbles, etc. I believe he was actually that deluded that people were as hyped about AI replacing workers as he was.

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[–] dylanmorgan@sh.itjust.works 8 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Somewhat related, I just started Spanish lessons using Language Transfer. Fewer bells and whistles but it’s human centric.

[–] gramie@lemmy.ca 5 points 20 hours ago

For my money (and I do donate every month to Language Transfer, because all the content is completely free) this is the best system for actually learning to use a language, as opposed to memorizing words and phrases.

You can do it with YouTube audio, SoundCloud MP3s, or the convenient app that does what it needs to without any extra bells in whistles.

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 11 points 23 hours ago

~~I could not correctly predict that most of this is hype and got delusional thinking I could make some quick bucks~~ PEOPLE ARE AFRAID OF TECHNOLOGY

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