Simon Willison’s Weblog

Betting on mobile made all the difference. We're making a similar call now, and this time the platform shift is AI.

AI isn't just a productivity boost. It helps us get closer to our mission. To teach well, we need to create a massive amount of content, and doing that manually doesn't scale. One of the best decisions we made recently was replacing a slow, manual content creation process with one powered by AI. Without AI, it would take us decades to scale our content to more learners. We owe it to our learners to get them this content ASAP. [...]

We'll be rolling out a few constructive constraints to help guide this shift:

• We'll gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle
• AI use will be part of what we look for in hiring
• AI use will be part of what we evaluate in performance reviews
• Headcount will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work
• Most functions will have specific initiatives to fundamentally change how they work [...]

— Luis von Ahn, Duolingo all-hands memo, shared on LinkedIn