this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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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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[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 28 minutes ago

Fire that CEO, he's an idiot.

[–] ech@lemm.ee 17 points 1 hour 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 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour 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.

[–] Fingolfinz@lemmy.world 12 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

AI could easily replace ceos

[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 45 minutes 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?

[–] Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 5 points 3 hours ago

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

[–] Tronn4@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago

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

[–] brandon@piefed.social 25 points 7 hours ago

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.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 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.

[–] AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 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.

[–] rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 38 points 9 hours ago

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

[–] jontree255@lemmy.world 90 points 11 hours ago

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

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 72 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 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 18 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago

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

[–] Jimmycakes@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago

Nah let him keep it longer. I think the company sales can go lower

[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 41 points 10 hours ago

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!

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 13 points 8 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.

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 19 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] NotAnotherLemmyUser@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I looked through a few pages worth of his comments (in English and Spanish) and I didn't pick up on that. Was there a particular response you were thinking about, or might it have been something that is now deleted?

https://old.reddit.com/user/vonahn

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Around the time they switched to more gamified pathing about two years ago he did not respond well to valid criticisms by people with disabilities in one of those AMAs and it is a major reason why I quit. I will have to dig when I'm on a PC. There were several posts on that subreddit on that topic around that time. I'm not sure if they are still there.

[–] NotAnotherLemmyUser@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Ok, I think I found it then:

https://old.reddit.com/r/duolingo/comments/yyw4h9/i_am_luis_von_ahn_cofounder_and_ceo_of_duolingo/iwwsfxw/?context=3

How do you respond to the idea that the new path is much more difficult for neurodivergent individuals to use?

Respectfully, I personally do not agree with this criticism, even though I've heard it before. Anecdotal evidence is one thing, but even in this thread there are a lot of neurodivergent individuals who prefer the path.

How do you feel about the criticism of the new path in terms of overall user experience?

We read it all, and have made a number of changes based on the feedback. However, as I said above the new path is better for usage and we also believe it is on average better for learning, since the in the previous layout people spent a lot of time redoing the lessons they already knew only to extend their streak or compete in the leaderboards, while in the new path the vast majority of lessons actually teach people.

What do you think about the decline in stock value since the new path was implemented? Or is the timeframe too short for you to draw meaningful conclusions?

I like the conspiracy theory :) Given that all metrics are equal or better in the new path, I can't imagine this is related (the stock market has been doing weird things in the last several months, especially for tech companies).

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 4 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Yea, that is part of it anyway. If you notice, he hasn't done one since lol. The app got increasingly more terrible anyway, such is enshittification.

[–] dylanmorgan@sh.itjust.works 8 points 8 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 7 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.

[–] shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 12 points 10 hours ago

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

[–] Bronstein_Tardigrade@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

He should have asked ChatGPT if there would be any blowback to using an LLM instead of people.

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 2 points 8 hours ago

He may have done just that and its forced positivity convinced him he was a genius.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 12 points 11 hours ago

“I have too much money!”

“I think much too highly of myself!”

“I’m a complete bastard!”

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 11 points 11 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

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 10 points 11 hours ago

As usual tech obsessives are completely disconnected from the general population.

[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)
[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 10 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Get the name of my image editor out of your mouth

[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 9 points 9 hours ago

Lol what an MS Paint