Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of “buy now, pay later” financing company Klarna, has an explanation for stating that AI can replace “all” jobs — even his own.
In a post on X on Sunday, Siemiatkowski laid out his thought process for saying that “AI can already do all our jobs,” a remark he said last month which he acknowledged “caused quite a stir.”
Siemiatkowski said that AI still needs more research and development before it can duplicate every job, but it has all of the raw potential to do so down the line.
He likened the comment to stating that humans were capable of building cars, computers, and rockets—in the year 1700 but they needed hundreds of years of research and innovation before they could actually create a computer. Humans in the year 1700 had brains that were just as capable as ours, but they needed raw materials to build modern technology.
In the same way, AI is now “capable of doing all our jobs, my own included,” Siemiatkowski wrote. “Our work is simply reasoning combined with knowledge/experience.”
Related: Klarna Says Its AI Assistant Does the Work of 700 People
Siemiatkowski acknowledged, however, that “how exactly we will combine those building blocks of reason and knowledge to replicate the work we do today is not yet entirely solved.”
I realize my statements on “AI can already do all our jobs” caused quite a stirr.
So let me explain and expand what I mean.
In my opinion the major breakthrough of AI is a computer with “reasoning” capabilities. This has basically been achieved already.
Not if you present AI…
— Sebastian Siemiatkowski (@klarnaseb) January 6, 2025
Siemiatkowski also wrote that he doesn’t think it will take hundreds of years for AI to take over human work, but he said that the prospect of AI taking his job quickly is a “gloomy” one.
“I am not necessarily super excited about this,” he wrote. “But I also believe we need to be honest with what we think will happen.”
Related: Duolingo Put Its Sarcastic Teen Chatbot to Work on Its Earnings Call in Place of CEO
Klarna claimed in February that its AI customer service assistant did the equivalent work of 700 human agents. In December, the company used an AI clone of Siemiatkowski to report its latest financial results.
Klarna has also implemented a hiring freeze for over a year as the company tries to supplement human work with AI. Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg last month that over 1,000 people have left Klarna since the freeze started, leaving behind a 3,500-person workforce.
As Klarna’s salary costs decrease, the company has told employees that “part of the gain of that is going to be seen” in their paychecks.
Klarna was worth $14.6 billion as of October.
Related: Klarna Replaces Workers With AI With Hiring Freeze, Pay Bump
