Last Week’s New Yorker, week of April 24 & May 1, Innovation & Tech Issue

Must-Read:

“The Language Game” - Carina Chocano talks to Luis von Ahn, the Guatemalan man behind Duolingo and CAPTCHA, who’s hoping to use deep computer learning to change language teaching. A weird one — somewhat odd, structurally (probably because machine learning, the subject that occupies the final few sections, wasn’t a big part of Duolingo’s story when the initial interviews for the piece were conducted) yet compelling throughout. I had no idea CAPTCHA, ReCAPTCHA, and DuoLingo all shared a founder, and I didn’t expect him to be such a charming and complex character, the rare genuine-seeming tech leader. Early on, Chocano brilliantly hones in on his “fundamental innocence” as core to his character; this interpretation crops back up a few times, but never in an obvious or signposted way. I was worried when the piece started addressing so-called A.I, but while von Ahn is a booster, Chocano does an excellent job deflating his promises without derailing the piece. (There’s a surprising amount of humor in her failed attempt to engage with the A.I. teacher, but she doesn’t let the roughness of the technology keep her from pointing out the broader issues: “…the inequalities that von Ahn wants to address are structural in nature and not the sort of thing that exposure to the basics of math or literacy, through an app, can fix.”) The focus on Guatemala is similarly well-handled; von Ahn seems genuinely well-meaning but Chocano doesn’t spare him scrutiny. Indeed, the ending is fairly damning, yet even portrayed as oblivious, von Ahn is charming, too. I was also impressed by Chocano’s prose, which is snappy but not showy, a hard balance in a piece so dense with quotes. It’s just her second time in the magazine;1 I hope to read more of her.

Window-Shop: