On April 28, Luis von Ahn, the CEO and cofounder of Duolingo, shared an email he had just sent to every employee on LinkedIn. He described how he wanted the language-learning app to become a “AI-first” company, which included eliminating contractors who could be replaced by AI and allowing a team to hire a new employee only in cases where they couldn’t use AI to automate their work.
It was a quick and negative reply. “This is a disaster. I will cancel my subscription,” wrote one commenter. “AI first means people last,” wrote another. And a third summed up the general feeling of critics when they wrote: “I can’t support a company that replaces humans with AI.”
One week later, von Ahn retracted his previous remarks, stating that he saw AI as a “tool to accelerate what we do, at the same or better level of quality,” rather than as a replacement for the work that our personnel do.
In a recent interview, von Ahn claims that the criticism he got surprised him. He was surprised by how much backlash he received. He acknowledges that he ought to have been more explicit about his AI objectives, but he also believes that the widespread concern that AI would replace humans is the root of the hostility. He claimed that while many tech companies are engaging in similar practices but they were transparent about it.
Von Ahn, though, is not by himself. Other chief executive officers have also been open about how their AI goals will impact their human workforce. In August of last year, for instance, the CEO of Klarna claimed that the company had eliminated hundreds of jobs as a result of AI. He noted that the company had reduced its headcount by 40% last month due to the new technology.
However, workers are very concerned about the possibility that AI will replace them. A Harris survey conducted for Fortune in 2023 found that almost 40% of employees who were familiar with ChatGPT were concerned that the technology will replace them. Furthermore, about 32% of workers worry that AI may limit their possibilities, according to a Pew poll published earlier this year. 52% more expressed concern about the possible effects of AI on the workplace in the future.
The executives of AI firms themselves aren’t often providing these anxious employees with consolation. Last month, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, told Axios that within the next five years, AI may replace almost half of all entry-level positions. There’s no going back now, he said.
Even the executives of AI firms themselves aren’t always comforting these anxious employees. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, warned Axios last month that half of entry-level positions might be replaced by AI in the next five years. According to him, there is no going back now.
He claimed that people simply don’t accept it since it seems so absurd. It is their responsibility as the creators of this technology to be forthright about what is to come.
The Blockgeni Editorial Team tracks the latest developments across artificial intelligence, blockchain, machine learning and data engineering. Our editors monitor hundreds of sources daily to surface the most relevant news, research and tutorials for developers, investors and tech professionals. Blockgeni is part of the SKILL BLOCK Group of Companies.
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