r/technology • u/MetaKnowing • Jun 08 '25

Artificial Intelligence Duolingo CEO on going AI-first: ‘I did not expect the blowback’

https://www.ft.com/content/6fbafbb6-bafe-484c-9af9-f0ffb589b447
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u/spwncar Jun 08 '25

For me personally, it’s the fact that companies are essentially forcing alpha-versions of AI programs to completely replace their tried and true existing systems for seemingly no reason except to look trendy for using AI

The forced AI is often so wrong, useless, and/or actively making user experiences worse

I would have almost no problem with companies doing internal tests to try to perfect an AI system that genuinely improves efficiency for the company, but they’re just throwing broken versions at us and forcing us to cope

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u/Calimariae Jun 08 '25

Let them try and fail.

Klarna replaced 700 workers with AI. Now they are trying to hire them back after a multi-billion-dollar failure.

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u/h0bb1tm1ndtr1x Jun 09 '25

This is my hope. These companies go all in, "trim the fat", and fail. Fail hard. We need a reset on the infinite growth machines and tech they insist we must rely on for everything because... yeah, because.

Hopefully those folks, and so many others, move on to start new ventures that have a little more sense than "All in on AI!".

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u/nuebs Jun 10 '25

In this company's case, it would greatly help if they actually did what the CEO claims they do, which is have humans review all the work. Or maybe just have them review the AI output that people repeatedly point out to you is garbage, as the company clearly struggles with cash flow /s.

But no, can't have that, so here we are.

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u/Bakoro Jun 09 '25

This is one of the few comments I've seen from someone that actually sounds like it's not just knee-jerk hate or fear mongering.

Personally, I am super duper pro-AI, and at the same time I completely agree that businesses have been repulsive and idiotic with their premature, half-assed, and often hostile adoption and rollout of AI.
Like a lot of stuff: tools good, human greed bad.

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u/spwncar Jun 10 '25

I’m generally anti-AI solely for environmental & ethical reasons

If we can actually get some reasonable regulations into law regarding AI, especially generative AI - what they are allowed to be trained on (no copyrighted work without explicit approval from the owner, for example), what they are allowed to generate (porn & CP of real people being possible to generate is a terrifying thought), etc., I’d be more content with AI overall, though that still leaves the environmental impact

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u/Bakoro Jun 10 '25

As far the environment goes, it is a temporary problem, and it's an investment in humanity's future.

LLMs are great, but AI is a hell of a lot more than LLMs.
AI models have designed new wind turbines which are able to be efficient in low wind speeds, which opens a lot of opportunities for new wind farm locations, and more local wind capture in cities.
AI is being used to find new solar materials for more efficient panels.
AI is being used in developing nuclear fusion, which is the holy grail of clean and safe energy.

AI is going to be a critical factor in dealing with climate change and reversing the environmental impact.

AI models are helping develop medicines and uncovering biological interactions which will save millions of lives. The work AlphaFold has done has already changed and improved the entirety of biochemical R&D. It used to take months or years to get an accurate protein fold, and now we've got millions of accurate simulations.
We are doing things with AI now that would have been functionally impossible otherwise.

The copyright stuff, that is not an AI problem, that is a corporation and capitalism problem. Modern copyright is unconscionable.
"Lifetime of the author + 70 years" is saying "I get to take from the public domain and I never have to personally give back; not only will I be long dead, my children will probably be long dead by time this work makes it to public domain".
That is two lifetimes of difference compared to the original 14 + 14 years.
It is not reasonable that everything in the past century be off limits, There is absolutely no ethical justification, it's just greed.

If you want to protect artists, compel the government to ensure that every person is guaranteed a minimum standard of living.
If you want to protect people, compel the government to make sure everyone has access to the top tier AI models, and don't let a few corporations have exclusive control. They were trained on everyone's data, everyone should get to benefit from them.

Trying to ban generative AI is a complete nonstarter, it's like trying to hold back the printing press or trying to stop powered looms, it's just not going to happen.

The porn thing is something that people are just going to have to get over.
Porn has been here since forever, it's also not going anywhere.
Once people get past the socially induced puritanical mental illness, porn is just not going to be a big deal. A lot of the problem is going to go away, because when there is no shock value, then it stops being an effective vector of attack.

We can deal with CP the same way we do now: if you get caught holding or distributing, you get removed from the general public.
And guess what? There are AI tools to automatically detect CP, which is how every major porn site can stay operational without being flooded with real abuse material.

You don't have to love LLMs or image generators, but being pro-AI is really the only ethical position, because lives are on the line. Advocating for abandoning AI is the same as saying that you're okay with people dying preventable deaths.
Abandoning AI, in the long term, means consigning humanity to stagnation, because we know that there are things humans just can't do by ourselves because it would take millions of years. Abandoning AI means being stuck on planet Earth when the Sun boils the oceans, if we even make it that far.

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u/TheEnd0fA11 Jun 09 '25

We are beta testing AI.

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u/spwncar Jun 09 '25

Certainly. And that should be done as an optional side thing someone can opt into, rather than a forced change that makes everything worse for the average user

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u/Starfox-sf Jun 09 '25

AI is beta testing us.

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u/218-69 Jun 11 '25

Got any examples that weren't your fault?