131: Trump and South Africa, Duolingo and AI

A News Roundup episode, and an episode of two halves.  We start with a discussion of the recent public Oval Office meeting between Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa, in which Trump harangued the South African president with accusations of 'white genocide' based on 'evidence' which tracks straight back to people in our usual wheelhouse.  Then we move on to a chat about the recent decision by language learning app Duolingo to replace loads of their contributors with AI, plus some dismaying news about Babbel, leading to a discussion of the impending AI jobs crisis.  Then we cap it off with an odd flex for us... a feel good story!

Episode Notes:

Trump spreads racist South African Farm Murders Memes in meeting with Ramaphosa

Trump/Ramaphosa meeting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TLkZv3gzO0

Response:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/21/politics/video/trump-ramaphosa-south-africa-video-larry-madowo-vrtc

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A check of Trump's false claims about white genocide in South Africa | Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-makes-false-claims-white-genocide-south-africa-during-ramaphosa-meeting-2025-05-21/

Trump’s evidence of South Africa ‘white genocide’ contains images from DR Congo – The Irish Times https://www.irishtimes.com/world/africa/2025/05/23/trumps-evidence-of-south-africa-white-genocide-contains-images-from-dr-congo/

Trump confronted South African president with ‘evidence’ of genocide – here’s what the video really showed | The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-south-africa-genocide-video-b2755625.html

Trump ambushes South African president with video and false claims of anti-white racism | Trump administration | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/21/trump-south-africa-president-meeting?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

What's Behind Trump’s South Africa Obsession? | Benjamin Fogel | TMR https://youtu.be/gR_gwPI5l-0?si=QfWeEuoosYeUD-JG

South Africa to offer Elon Musk Starlink deal ahead of Trump meeting | Business Insider Africa https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/south-africa-to-offer-elon-musk-starlink-deal-ahead-of-trump-meeting/v0k8bxk?op=1

White Nationalists Praise Trump’s Promotion Of White Genocide Conspiracy Theory – Angry White Men https://angrywhitemen.org/2025/05/22/white-nationalists-praise-trumps-promotion-of-white-genocide-conspiracy-theory/

Exclusive: Trump Shared Racist, Flat-Earth Facebook Account With South African President https://www.meidasplus.com/p/exclusive-trump-shared-racist-flat

Roaming Charges: White Lies About White Genocide - CounterPunch.org https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/05/23/white-lies-about-white-genocide/

DR Congo: Killings, Rapes by Rwanda-Backed M23 Rebels | Human Rights Watch https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/13/dr-congo-killings-rapes-rwanda-backed-m23-rebels

As Goma ceasefire largely holds, Congo rushes to bury bodies from rebel offensive | Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/east-congo-city-goma-rushes-bury-bodies-after-rebel-offensive-2025-02-04/

A white nationalist moved to Idaho in search of an ‘ethnic enclave.’ He’s not alone. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/jul/21/a-white-nationalist-moved-to-idaho-in-search-of-an/

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Duolingo Replacing Contract Workers With AI

The Verge, “Duolingo will replace contract workers with AI”

https://www.theverge.com/news/657594/duolingo-ai-first-replace-contract-workers

“AI isn’t just a productivity boost,” von Ahn says. “It helps us get closer to our mission. To teach well, we need to create a massive amount of content, and doing that manually doesn’t scale. One of the best decisions we made recently was replacing a slow, manual content creation process with one powered by AI. Without AI, it would take us decades to scale our content to more learners. We owe it to our learners to get them this content ASAP.”

von Ahn’s email follows a similar memo Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke sent to employees and recently shared online. In that memo, Lütke said that before teams asked for more headcount or resources, they needed to show “why they cannot get what they want done using AI.”

Fortune, “Duolingo CEO walks back AI-first comments: ‘I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do’”

“To be clear: I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do (we are in fact continuing to hire at the same speed as before),” he wrote. “I see it as a tool to accelerate what we do, at the same or better level of quality. And the sooner we learn how to use it, and use it responsibly, the better off we will be in the long run.”

Babbel quietly ending Babbel Live

Babbel Support, “Discontinuation of Babbel Live”

https://support.babbel.com/hc/en-us/articles/26749152437522-Discontinuation-of-Babbel-Live

“Babbel Live was introduced in 2021. Knowing the power of human teachers, we aimed to offer our learners this experience from their homes. Over time, however, we did see a clear trend: the majority of them did not accept Babbel Live as part of their language learning path, making it impossible for us to sustain it as a business.

This change will help us achieve our goal of helping you become fluent in your new language quickly by enabling us to focus on improving our app, which most learners, especially beginners, prefer.”

Boycott Over Upcoming E-sports Event in Riyadh Makes Geoguessr Change Its Stance

Geoguessr Community Protests Esports World Cup by Disabling Popular Maps.

https://www.si.com/esports/news/geoguessr-protests-esports-world-cup

Statement from Feneb, one of the World Championship players, about his decision to boycott the Riyadh event.

https://discord.com/channels/1003591679644807229/1026965093331779634/1375003211513204746

“The decision to participate in the Esports World Cup, which is directly funded by the Saudi Arabian government in an effort to distract public attention from the above human rights violations, is thus directly incompatible with any stated aims by GeoGuessr to promote an inclusive and diverse community, and extremely disappointing. I also do not want to dismiss the issue of hosting a tournament in Saudi Arabia, regardless of whether the event is directly run by the Saudi government or not. It is completely unnecessary to host a tournament in a country which some current or possible future world league players would be unable to travel to safely.”

Statement from Geoguessr regarding their decision to reverse the event in Riyadh (Reddit)

https://www.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/1ksky0k/geoguessr_is_withdrawing_from_the_esports_world/

Geoguessr challenge links:

(Standard) World Map

https://www.geoguessr.com/challenge/MIJFcVhIFNpVapVs https://www.geoguessr.com/challenge/sedHxYRoMPdmFxdZ https://www.geoguessr.com/challenge/eIRYCYBhuUUBVIT2

An Official World

https://www.geoguessr.com/challenge/tK9A8O1KUXQfZgCu https://www.geoguessr.com/challenge/NGYJ4uk0WhxNR5Ui https://www.geoguessr.com/challenge/Yc4uD6P8lFISKIgb

A Community World

https://www.geoguessr.com/challenge/B87Y20LMvmtDvUwN https://www.geoguessr.com/challenge/I9ub9gc9CmoEQpjn https://www.geoguessr.com/challenge/ZwKxnW3Ms9UTZZt6

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The AI jobs crisis is here, now - by Brian Merchant https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-jobs-crisis-is-here-now

Something Alarming Is Happening to the Job Market - The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/04/job-market-youth/682641/

 Show Notes:

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