this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
772 points (98.6% liked)

Technology

70466 readers
2984 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
  • Following backlash to statements that Duolingo will be AI-first, threatening jobs in the process, CEO Luis von Ahn has tried to walk back his statement.
  • Unfortunately, the CEO doesn’t walk back any of the key points he originally outlined, choosing instead to try, and fail to placate the maddening crowd.
  • Unfortunately the PR team may soon be replaced by AI as this latest statement has done anything but instil confidence in the firm’s users.
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] echodot@feddit.uk 41 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (5 children)

How do these people become CEOs they're as thick as several short planks nailed together.

Firstly every single company that has tried to replace its employees with AI has always ended up having issues. Secondly even if that wasn't the case, people are not going to be happy about it so it's not something you should brag publicly about.

If you're going to replace all of your employees with AI just do it quietly, that way if it fails it's not a public failure, and if it succeeds (it won't) then you talk about it.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 29 points 5 days ago

How do these people become CEOs they’re as thick as several short planks nailed together.

Being a CEO has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence, I guarantee you that Duolingo has employees who are far more intelligent than the CEO.

[–] nandeEbisu@lemmy.world 16 points 5 days ago

People who are smart in one or two domains often overestimate how smart they are in other domains. They develop a mental model, confirm it quickly, and never re-asses it.

The issue with AI, is we're probably hitting our first real S curve with the current technology's performance but a lot of people who bet big are only see the exponential part and assuming there won't be a level off, or that the level of is far away.

There is no Moore's law for AI.

[–] HeartyOfGlass@lemm.ee 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Intelligence has nothing to do with success. These people are born into wealth, are wealth-adjacent, or are expert ass-kissers.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

They also tend to be more greedy than others for wealth, status and power, and not imaginative enough to see that life is about more than this. So they dedicate their life to crawling up to the top of the corporate heap while everyone else gets on with actual real stuff.

If they do it quietly, they won't get the stock price bump every company gets from saying they're going to replace (costly) employees with AI.

[–] sturger@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

People keep forgetting that these companies’ product is stock price, not whatever they’re advertising at any given moment.
Their “CEOs” have gotten sloppy because the grift has gotten so easy they naturally assume everyone is in on it. If everyone is in on the grift, there’s no need to lie about it.