New Delhi, Aug. 18 -- Duolingo chief executive Luis von Ahn has sought to clarify remarks that sparked backlash earlier this year after he described the language-learning platform as an "AI-first company".

Speaking to The New York Times, von Ahn said the reaction stemmed from a lack of context in his original comments. "Internally, this was not controversial," he noted. "Externally, as a publicly traded company, some people assume that it's just for profit. Or that we're trying to lay off humans. And that was not the intent at all."

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The CEO stressed that the company has not made redundancies among its full-time employees and said there were no plans to do so. However, he acknowledged fluctuations in the firm's use ...