Loekalization Blog

There comes a moment in every civilization when it collectively loses the plot. Ancient Rome had bread and circuses. We’ve got AI replacing professional translators with the blessing of clueless tech executives who couldn’t conjugate a verb if their stock options depended on it. What Duolingo just did—firing its freelance linguists, forbidding new hires unless tasks are proven impossible to automate, and tying employee performance to how well they submit to AI—isn’t just a strategic error. It’s a full-blown ideological collapse dressed in UX-friendly gradients and buzzwords, with a smiling owl ushering us into a future where accuracy is optional and cost-cutting is divine.

They say it’s about efficiency. “We’re going AI-first,” they chirp, like toddlers explaining quantum physics. “We’re accepting a few small hits to quality in exchange for moving faster.” Translation: We’re tossing centuries of linguistic nuance into a woodchipper and crossing our fingers the algorithm doesn’t translate ‘chicken sandwich’ as ‘feathered prostitute’ in Portuguese. Duolingo’s memo might as well have read, “We’re no longer a learning app, we’re an experimental art project in cognitive decline.”

This isn’t progress. This is what happens when your CFO reads a Gartner report and suddenly thinks a prediction engine should write your curriculum. It’s not just bad—it’s a hostile takeover of reality by people who fundamentally do not care what words mean, as long as the dashboard turns green and investors stop asking questions.

The Cult of AI: Smarter Than You, Dumber Than It Thinks

Let’s talk about the unsupervised AI delusion—the belief that a neural net with zero experience in law, culture, emotion, or common damn sense can replace professionals who’ve spent decades learning how to say “Your Honour” without starting a diplomatic incident. The arrogance here is terminal. It’s not innovation; it’s cargo cult logic wrapped in a lanyard.

Case in point: an Account Executive at Phrase recently declared AI translations are now perfect—no post-editing needed. When challenged by seasoned legal translator Deborah Parry do Carmo to a simple test in public, he ghosted faster than a bad Tinder date. His post disappeared like credibility at a crypto seminar. Because that’s what happens when your AI dreams are held together with duct tape and LinkedIn endorsements.

Let’s be clear: this man had no translation experience, no credentials, and no grasp of what the hell he was talking about. But there he was, confidently explaining to a woman who literally translates law for a living that her profession had been solved. It’s the linguistic equivalent of handing a Roomba a scalpel and calling it a surgeon.

AI Is the Wrong Tool for the Right Job—and Nobody Cares

AI doesn’t know when it’s wrong. It doesn’t blush. It doesn’t revise. It just hallucinates with conviction. It strings words together with the cold confidence of a sociopath who’s watched too many YouTube tutorials on human interaction. And when it fails? No one’s fired. No one apologizes. The damage just lingers, quietly miseducating thousands of unsuspecting users like linguistic mold in an airtight box.

Duolingo used to have freelancers. Human beings who actually knew things. Who spotted idioms. Who knew the difference between “formal” and “for when you’re drunk in Marseille.” Now, it has a machine that thinks “The owl drinks a little vodka” is a reasonable beginner sentence. And it’s not alone. Phrase, DeepL, Google Translate—they’re all pushing the same narcotic: the idea that good enough is the same as expert, and cheap is better than correct.

But this isn’t just a tech issue. It’s a moral one. Because the people being misled aren’t developers or CEOs. They’re language learners, legal clients, immigrants, tourists, medical patients, asylum seekers. Real people depending on words to mean what they’re supposed to mean. And when those words are wrong? The price isn’t just embarrassment. It’s misunderstanding. Mistranslation. Misjudgment. Sometimes, even deportation or death.

The Emperor Has No Verbs

This is the kind of decline you don’t see until it’s already eating your teeth. Language is civilization’s software. And what these companies are doing is introducing bugs—deliberately, recklessly, publicly. All in the name of speed and savings. And when someone like Deborah calls it out? They don’t respond. They delete, deflect, vanish. Because deep down, even they know it’s indefensible. You can only lie about accuracy for so long before the sentence “I’d like a lawyer” becomes “Please hand me your goat.”

You want to make AI useful? Great. Let it assist. Let it suggest. Let it draft. But supervise it like a toddler near a power outlet. Do not let it run the show, rewrite legal documents, or replace an entire sector of trained professionals because Chad from Marketing thinks the chatbot passed the Turing test after three Red Bulls.

Duolingo has now become the punchline of its own mission statement. “Learn languages,” they said. “Empower people,” they said. And now? They’ve empowered a synthetic moron to teach Portuguese like it’s assembling IKEA furniture with boxing gloves.

This Ends Where We Let It

The real tragedy? Most people won’t notice. They’ll keep using the apps. They’ll keep believing the hype. They’ll learn the wrong word for “hospital” and wonder why they were escorted to a funeral parlor. But we, the professionals, the ones who actually know what this work takes—we see it. And we’re done being polite.

AI is a tool. But in the hands of fools and cowards, it becomes a weapon. A weapon aimed squarely at the truth.

So here’s my final message to the tech execs, the marketers, the AI zealots preaching the gospel of the unsupervised machine: you are not the future. You are a regression in a hoodie. And we see you.

And no, the apple does not speak Dutch. But it’s starting to sound a lot smarter than you.