TL;DR — What You Need to Know

• Duolingo is cutting contractors and ramping up AI use, shifting towards an “AI-first” strategy.
• Journalists link this to a broader, creeping jobs crisis in creative and entry-level industries.
• It’s not robots replacing workers — it’s leadership decisions driven by cost-cutting and control.

Are We at the Brink of an AI Jobs Crisis

AI isn’t stealing jobs — companies are handing them over. Duolingo’s latest move might be the canary in the creative workforce coal mine.

Here’s the thing: we’ve all been bracing for some kind of AI-led workforce disruption — but few expected it to quietly begin with language learning and grammar correction.

This week, Duolingo officially declared itself an “AI-first” company, announcing plans to replace contractors with automation. But according to journalist Brian Merchant, the switch has been happening behind the scenes for a while now. First, it was the translators. Then the writers. Now, more roles are quietly dissolving into lines of code.

What’s most unsettling isn’t just the layoffs — it’s what this move represents. Merchant, writing in his newsletter Blood in the Machine, argues that we’re not watching some dramatic sci-fi robot uprising. We’re watching spreadsheet-era decision-making, dressed up in futuristic language. It’s not AI taking jobs. It’s leaders choosing not to hire people in the first place.

In fact, The Atlantic recently reported a spike in unemployment among recent college grads. Entry-level white collar roles, which were once stepping stones into careers, are either vanishing or being passed over in favour of AI tools. And let’s be honest — if you’re an exec balancing budgets and juggling board pressure, skipping a salary for a subscription might sound pretty tempting.

But there’s a bigger story here. The AI jobs crisis isn’t a single event. It’s a slow burn. A thousand small shifts — fewer freelance briefs, fewer junior hires, fewer hands on deck in creative industries — that are starting to add up.

As Merchant puts it:

So now we have to ask: if companies like Duolingo are laying the groundwork for an AI-powered future, who exactly is being left behind?

Are we ready to admit that the AI jobs crisis isn’t coming — it’s already here?

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TL;DR — What You Need to Know

• Former OpenAI insiders say the company is straying from its nonprofit mission — and that could be dangerous.
• A legal letter urges US states to stop OpenAI’s transformation into a fully commercial venture.
• Critics argue the new structure would weaken its duty to humanity in favour of shareholder profits.

OpenAI For-Profit Transition: Could It Risk Humanity?

Former employees and academics are urging US courts to block OpenAI’s shift to a for-profit model, warning it could endanger humanity’s future.

The Moral Compass Is Spinning

OpenAI was founded with a mission so lofty it sounded almost utopian: ensure artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. But fast forward to 2025, and that noble vision is under serious legal and ethical fire — from the very people who once helped build the company.

This week, a group of former OpenAI staffers, legal scholars, and even Nobel Prize winners sent an official plea to California and Delaware attorneys general: don’t let OpenAI go full for-profit. They claim such a move could put both the company’s original mission and humanity’s future at risk.

Among the voices is Nisan Stiennon, a former employee who isn’t mincing words. He warns that OpenAI’s pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) — a theoretical AI smarter than humans — could have catastrophic outcomes. “OpenAI may one day build technology that could get us all killed,” he says. Cheery.

At the heart of the complaint is the fear that OpenAI’s transition into a public benefit corporation (PBC) would legally dilute its humanitarian responsibilities. While PBCs can consider the public good, they’re not required to prioritise it over shareholder profits. Todor Markov, another ex-OpenAI team member now at Anthropic, sums it up: “You have no recourse if they just decide to stop caring.”

This all adds up to a dramatic ethical tug-of-war — between commercial growth and moral responsibility. And let’s not forget that CEO Sam Altman has already weathered a scandal in 2023 involving secret updates, boardroom drama, and a five-day firing that ended with his reinstatement.

It’s juicy, yes. But also deeply important.

Because whether or not AGI is even technically possible right now, what we’re really watching is a battle over how much trust we’re willing to place in companies building our digital future.

So here’s the question that matters:

If humanity’s safety depends on who’s in control of AGI — do we really want it run like just another startup?

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TL;DR — What You Need to Know

• Geoffrey Hinton warns there’s up to a 20% chance AI could take control from humans.
• He believes big tech is ignoring safety while racing ahead for profit.
• Hinton says we’re playing with a “tiger cub” that could one day kill us — and most people still don’t get it.

Geoffrey Hinton’s AI warning

Geoffrey Hinton doesn’t do clickbait. But when the “Godfather of AI” says we might lose control of artificial intelligence, it’s worth sitting up and listening.

Hinton, who helped lay the groundwork for modern neural networks back in the 1980s, has always been something of a reluctant prophet. He’s no AI doomer by default — in fact, he sees huge promise in using AI to improve medicine, education, and even tackle climate change. But recently, he’s been sounding more like a man trying to shout over the noise of unchecked hype.

And he’s not mincing his words:

That tiger cub? It’s AI.
And Hinton estimates there’s a 10–20% chance that AI systems could eventually wrest control from human hands. Think about that. If your doctor said you had a 20% chance of a fatal allergic reaction, would you still eat the peanuts?

What really stings is Hinton’s frustration with the companies leading the AI charge — including Google, where he used to work. He’s accused big players of lobbying for less regulation, not more, all while paying lip service to the idea of safety.

It gets worse. According to Hinton, companies should be putting about a third of their computing power into safety research. Right now, it’s barely a fraction. When CBS asked OpenAI, Google, and X.AI how much compute they actually allocate to safety, none of them answered the question. Big on ambition, light on transparency.

This raises real questions about who gets to steer the AI ship — and whether anyone is even holding the wheel.

Hinton isn’t alone in his concerns. Tech leaders from Sundar Pichai to Elon Musk have all raised red flags about AI’s trajectory. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: while the industry is good at talking safety, it’s not so great at building it into its business model.

So the man who once helped AI learn to finish your sentence is now trying to finish his own — warning the world before it’s too late.

Over to YOU!

Are we training the tools that will one day outgrow us — or are we just too dazzled by the profits to care?

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