In a September 2024 interview with Forbes, Duolingo founder and CEO Luis von Ahn said he expects AI-driven changes to work to hit poor and less-educated people especially hard, including people in poorer countries. That was his forecast—not a measured estimate of jobs AI will eliminate. The interview’s concrete example was Duolingo’s use of AI for some translation and lesson-writing work previously handled by contractors.
What did Luis von Ahn say about AI and jobs?
Speaking to Forbes at Duo’s Taqueria in Pittsburgh, von Ahn described the employment outlook for vulnerable workers as “a tough situation that’ll affect the poor, the less educated.” He added: “And not just in the U.S., but in poor countries.”
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He did not attach a date, job-by-job forecast or total number of expected losses to that prediction. The interview records one company leader’s view of potential disruption; it does not establish how many jobs AI will eliminate or what the net effect on employment will be.
Von Ahn also argued that governments would need smart regulation to make AI equitable, while expressing skepticism that the United States would legislate effectively. That is his policy opinion, not an enacted proposal or a settled consensus.
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What happened to Duolingo’s contractors?
Forbes reported that Duolingo did not renew contracts for about 10% of its contracted workforce working on translations and lesson writing, and that the company used AI for some of those tasks. The figure refers to contractors, not 10% of Duolingo’s full-time employees; Futurism clarified that distinction in an update.
Von Ahn characterized the work this way: “A full time employee’s job is very hard to automate. But we had some hourly contractors who were doing pretty rote stuff.” That is his assessment of the roles and tasks in this example, not proof that full-time jobs are generally immune to automation.
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Duolingo’s own Q3 2023 shareholder letter said, “Generative AI is accelerating our work by helping us create new content dramatically faster.” The company also described AI-generated scripts for a new lesson format and Duolingo Max as an experimental product. Those statements explain the company’s stated use of AI; they do not independently measure the effect on workers.
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His comments focused on workers with less education and people living in poorer countries. He did not identify specific occupations or say that every person in those groups would lose work. The interview therefore supports describing his concern about unequal exposure, but not presenting it as a quantified or occupation-specific prediction.
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For someone asking “Will AI take my job?”, this interview cannot provide an individual answer. Its example shows that a company may use AI for some routine content tasks, while leaving open how widely that pattern will spread, which roles will change, and whether new work will offset displaced tasks.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Could AI tutoring help even as it displaces tutors?
Von Ahn’s argument was that AI tutors could make one-to-one instruction more widely available, even if they reduce demand for some human tutors: “It may put one-on-one human tutors out of business. I understand that. But I think net-net it is better if everybody has access to one.”
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Forbes described Duolingo’s ambition to build an automated AI tutor and a then-announced video-call feature with a Duolingo character. These are details reported in September 2024, not confirmation of current availability or pricing.
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Elizabeth Birr Moje, dean of the University of Michigan’s Marsal Family School of Education, pointed to a limitation of AI instruction: “It cannot see if a student is experiencing frustration. It cannot see body language. It cannot see joy.” The interview offers these competing considerations—potentially broader access and the loss of human attention to learners’ cues—but does not report a controlled comparison of tutoring outcomes.
What can this interview establish about AI job losses?
It establishes that, in 2024, Duolingo’s CEO expected poor and less-educated people to face particular difficulty as AI changes work, and that Duolingo had used AI for some tasks associated with contractor roles. It does not establish current job-loss totals, a reliable estimate of future unemployment caused by AI, or the eventual balance between jobs displaced and jobs created.
The most useful takeaway is to separate the observable company example from the broader prediction: some work was shifted to AI in this case, while the scale and distribution of AI’s effects across the labor market remain unanswered by the interview.
Quick Recap
Sources
- Forbes: “Duolingo’s Billionaire Founder Is All In On AI,” September 24, 2024
- Futurism: “Billionaire Sips Margaritas as He Predicts How AI Will Kill Jobs for the Most Desperate People,” September 26, 2024
- Duolingo Q3 2023 shareholder letter
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