More than a decade ago, Duolingo was one of the world's most popular translation platforms, employing a large number of outsourced translators around the world to translate learning content and user interfaces for its own software.
However, with the launch of tools such as Google Translate and Microsoft Translator, it has eaten up part of the market. In addition, with the recent increase in the popularity of AI tools, cheap human translation is becoming less and less high-quality than machine translation. Duolingo is gradually introducing AI to replace outsourced translators, and some users on the Reddit platform have posted that the company has laid off thousands of employees, and the remaining contractors only review AI-generated content to ensure the quality of translation.
It is reported that a dismissed contract employee on Reddit posted a dismissal email sent by Duolingo HR to himself, confirming that Duolingo is taking action against "outsourced translators".
Reddit user no comb 4582
He said he received a notice of dismissal in mid-December, and that two of the four core members of his team were reportedly dismissed, leaving two with future jobs to "review AI-generated content to ensure quality."
Some Reddit users believe that Duolingo's move may reduce the quality of software services, and that AI cannot completely replace human high-quality translation, especially in some less popular languages, and the results of machine translation may not be ideal.
Duolingo's CEO has previously expressed his optimism about AI, believing that "AI is a partner rather than an enemy", and Duolingo has also launched a Duolingo MAX subscription service, which integrates OpenAI's GPT-4 large language model, and users can have a "conversational" chat with characters such as Duolingo (Duolingo's mascot).