Duolingo’s CEO says AI will soon replace teachers. But… should it?
Will AI soon teach a generation of kids to read, do long division, and that cooties aren’t real, but germs are, so to stop wiping boogers under their desks?
Luis von Ahn, founder and CEO of language-learning app Duolingo, seems to think so.
Von Ahn has been stirring up a lot of controversy recently with his company’s new AI-first strategy. Now, he’s facing backlash over statements he made on the No Priors podcast earlier this month suggesting that AI is a better teacher than humans due to its ability to personalize learning — despite, as some experts point out, there being no scientific evidence to back up his claims.
He added that we’ll likely soon see AI take over teachers in classrooms — maybe even in the next few years.
“Ultimately, I’m not sure that there’s anything computers can’t really teach you,” von Ahn said on the May 8 episode of the podcast.
“I think you’ll just see a lot better learning outcomes, in general,” he added, while explaining that “it’s just a lot more scalable to teach with AI than with teachers.”
Von Ahn’s comments come not long after Duolingo announced it was replacing its contract employees with AI, part of its AI-first strategy that includes using generative AI to build and launch 148 new courses. The company’s announcements have not gone down well with many of the app’s users, who have flooded Duolingo’s social media accounts with comments decrying the decision or claiming to delete the app.
Over the weekend, amid the backlash, Duolingo deleted all of its posts on Instagram and TikTok, where it had garnered millions of followers. On Tuesday, the company posted a video on both platforms where someone in an owl mask with three eyes rants about how “everything came crashing down with one single post about AI.”
And around the same time as all this, the media picked up on von Ahn’s earlier interview on No Priors, where he clarified that teachers and schools still have a role to play: childcare.
“That doesn’t mean the teachers are going to go away, you still need people to take care of the students,” he said.
AI is now a daily tool for many but experts say it’s still not widely understood. The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, AMii, is getting a $5 million gift from Google to shape artificial intelligence courses at 25 post-secondary institutions across Canada.
A marketing statement?
Matthew Guzdial, an assistant computing science professor at the University of Alberta, says it’s important to reframe von Ahn’s claims as a marketing statement for Duolingo, and not an informed opinion on education.
“He’s wanting to project strength and project that this is the way his company is doing it; this is the way everyone will be doing it going forward,” Guzdial told CBC News.
For instance, Duolingo’s website links to several peer-reviewed studies on the app’s efficacy, including its use of generative AI, funded by…
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