Duolingo announced plans this week to replace contractors with AI and become an “AI-first” company — a move that journalist Brian Merchant pointed to as a

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Duolingo is shifting towards an 'AI-first' strategy, replacing contractors with artificial intelligence. This move reflects a broader trend where companies are using AI to reduce labor costs, affecting creative sectors and contributing to higher unemployment among recent graduates. The AI jobs crisis highlights management decisions prioritizing AI over hiring human workers.

Is Duolingo the face of an AI jobs crisis?

first thing i will replace with AI is duolingo itself.

And the first companies (Klarna) are moving back to humans
<a href="https://fortune.com/2025/05/09/klarna-ai-humans-return-on-investment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://fortune.com/2025/05/09/klarna-ai-humans-return-on-investment/</a>

If you’re going to hire bots, then sell them your products. We should boycott such companies. Why support tyrants who want to increase their profits?

Not a big fan of LLMs, but it’s a godsend for localizing an app. My current project now supports 14 languages, thanks to GPT.
You have to be able to determine what those things are good for and what things they’re not designed to handle properly.

It was all fun and games as long as AI stuck to “Hey, Developer, AI will replace you soon, lolz”.
But as soon as AI touched the creative sector territory “omg, sound the alarm, the end is nigh” etc etc