Duolingo Cuts Workers as It Relies More on AI
Washington Post (01/11/24) By Gerrit De Vynck
Language-learning app Duolingo has been steadily firing contract writers and translators, replacing them with artificial intelligence (AI), in one of the most high-profile instances yet of a company getting rid of human workers in favor of AI.
In several waves of layoffs last year, including in the summer and in December, Duolingo cut contractors who had been writing lessons and coming up with potential ways to translate phrases from one language to another. It’s unclear exactly how many jobs were lost, but the cuts affected teams working on dozens of language programs.
Since OpenAI released ChatGPT just over a year ago, companies around the world have been scrambling to find ways to use AI chatbots. Because the bots can create human-sounding text on practically any topic, marketers and online publishing companies have been among the first to use them to directly replace human writers. AI skeptics and critics have pointed out that chatbots make plenty of errors that require human editors to fix. Still, the potential cost savings is driving more companies to use the tools for writing, translation, and graphic design.
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Duolingo Sheds Some Human Workers as AI Threatens to Upend the $65 Billion Translation Industry
Fast Company (01/24/24) By Sam Becker
The language-learning app downplayed automation’s role in a recent offboarding of contractors, but translators worry it’s a harbinger of things to come.
New AI tools are helping automate the translation process. And, as in other industries, a translator who can leverage those tools and implement them into workflows to become faster, more efficient, and more cost-effective, is maybe more likely than others to make it through the coming round of disruption employed.
Others in the industry say that, interestingly enough, the translation industry is one that’s been at the forefront of the AI revolution for perhaps longer than any, or at least longer than most.
“We’ve been dealing with this for a lot longer than most people think,” said Ben Karl, a member of the board of directors at the American Translators Association (ATA), who also owns a translating service. Karl said that there have been oft-used translation tools on the market for a long time, such as Google Translate, but it’s really been the past several years that things have picked up as it relates to AI use in translation.
“We’re in an interesting moment where we’re all trying to figure out how to adapt to this tech,” says Karl. “Translators are uniquely poised because we’ve dealt with this for a while already. It’s been a part of a lot of translators’ workflows and toolboxes for a long time. But this is like it’s on steroids,” he says.
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Minnesota Court Interpreters Support Continuing Work Stoppage Long Term
Star Tribune (01/17/24) By Maya Rao
A group of Minnesota court interpreters is in its second week of declining case assignments in protest of the judiciary not meeting their demands for a pay increase that keeps up with inflation.
The court system has a roster of 300 freelance interpreters, about one-third of whom are certified through rigorous testing. The certified interpreters have led the work stoppage, but exactly how many interpreters have stopped work is unknown.
“We take this very seriously…we’ve been very clear from the beginning that we absolutely stand very firmly behind what interpreters do,” said Kim Pleticha, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Judicial Branch. “They provide a very critical service to the courts.”
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Lily Gladstone Makes Golden Globes History as First Indigenous Best Actress Winner, Delivers Speech in Blackfeet
Smithsonian Magazine (01/08/24) By Julia Binswanger
Lily Gladstone won Best Actress at the Golden Globes earlier this month, becoming the first Indigenous person in history to receive the award.
Gladstone, who has Blackfeet and Nez Perce heritage, is only the second Indigenous actress in the Globes’ history to receive a nomination. The first, Irene Bedard, was nominated for her role in the TV movie Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee in 1995.
According to a recent report from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, which took an inventory of 1,600 top films from the past 16 years, less than a quarter of 1% of all speaking characters were Native American—and a quarter of those parts were played by non-Native actors.
“This is for every little rez kid, every little urban kid, every little Native kid out there who has a dream,” she said, “who is seeing themselves represented and our stories told—by ourselves, in our own words—with tremendous allies and tremendous trust from and with each other.”
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Museum in Nova Scotia Explores Province’s Ties to Gaelic
CBC (01/03/24) By Matthew Moore
Researchers at the Highland Village Museum in Nova Scotia, Canada, are leading a project to understand the role Gaelic language and culture play in the province’s communities. The research involves interviewing people across the province who speak the language or have a connection to it, or to Gaelic traditions. Nearly 100 interviews have been completed so far.
“The end goal is to produce a study that will give us some better sense of the social, the cultural, and economic impact of Gaelic language and culture in Nova Scotia today,” said Shamus MacDonald, project lead and manager of culture and language at the museum.
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For Children of Latino Immigrants in Kansas City, Being the Family Interpreter Is an Honor and Burden
KCUR (12/27/23) By Zach Perez
Across the U.S., thousands of children and young adults serve as informal interpreters for family members who don’t speak English. Many of them find pride in being of service to their families, but experts worry that this pride may be masking more serious long-term effects.
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