Duolingo’s first video drop in days has the degraded, stuttering feel of a Max Headroom video made by the hackers at Anonymous. In it, a supposed member of the company’s social team appears in a three-eyed Duo mask and black hoodie to complain about the corporate overlords ruining the empire the heroic social media crew built. “Everything came crashing down after one single post about AI,” our interlocutor says, a winking nod to the cause of the backlash.
That video made me recoil. Even for a soulless corporation, it was beyond patronizing.