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Louis von Ahn He could have retired to a beach somewhere years ago. He is best known as the learning app CEO Duolingoinvented by von Ahn in the early 2000s Captchathose infuriating online quizzes that force people to prove they’re not robots. But after selling his innovation to Google in 2009, von Ahn wasted no time launching his next venture: a company drawn from his experience growing up in Guatemala that is now one of the world’s leading education platforms.
Von Ahn’s mother, a doctor, spent all her extra income to send him to private school, which provided von Ahn with learning opportunities that most local children had never seen before. This in turn shaped his view of education in stark terms. Not as a great equalizer of society but as a force that often reinforces inequality unless someone intervenes. Which, he told me in the big interview this week, is why he founded Duolingo more than a decade ago, with the goal of making high-quality education free and widely available. Today the company reaches more than 130 million users around the worldFrom immigrants learning new languages to celebrities Like George Clooney.
The issue of inequality may have inspired von Ahn, but his company is now at the center of a different conversation: artificial intelligence. like Amnesty International It is rapidly changing the way people learn, how companies are run, and how workers think about their value, and I wondered how it was impacting Duolingo’s internal business, expansion plans, and perhaps its long-term sustainability. If AI can translate almost anything, in any medium, easily simulate conversation, create lesson plans, and personalize instruction…does the world still need Duolingo?
Von Ahn has an unequivocal view: Not only does Duolingo already benefit from generative AI, he says, but people will continue to enjoy the opportunity to learn new things with its motivating, playful approach. In our conversation, he talked about building a task-based company within the constraints of Wall Street, why he wouldn’t mind a company’s stock price falling, and why Duolingo can keep users learning in ways that AI can’t.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Katie Drummond: Louis von Ahn, welcome to the big interview.
Louis von Ahn: Thanks for having me.
We always start these conversations with some quick questions, like training your brain. Are you ready?
certainly.
What language do you most want to learn, but haven’t been able to learn yet?
Swedish. I’m learning it, but I need to get better at it. My wife is Swedish.
And this is a good reason. You better get that.
I’m on it.
What job do you think AI should never do?
Lots of jobs. I think anything where people need inspiration, like teachers. Humans need inspiration. It is very difficult to get inspiration from artificial intelligence.
I agree. I think the AI has a little problem with inspiration. You were 28 when you received a MacArthur “genius” grant. What did you do with the money?
I put it in the bank. I was very happy to receive that. I am very proud. But yeah, I put it in the bank. In the end this probably ended up being spent setting things up for Duolingo.
Which language has the most ridiculous grammar rules?
Finnish and Hungarian are very difficult to learn and have strange grammar. But overall, I don’t know if it’s a matter of sarcasm. In general, languages far from your native language sound silly and feel strange.