One of the biggest concerns as artificial intelligence advances is whether the technology has the power to take over jobs. A CEO strongly believes that AI not only has the power to perform menial or repetitive tasks, but also has the intelligence and reasoning to take on its own position as the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of buy-now-pay platform Klarna, said AI’s reasoning capabilities make this possible.
“For me, AI is capable of doing all our jobs, including mine,” Siemiatkowski said in an article on X earlier this year. “Because our work is simply reasoning combined with knowledge/experience. And the most crucial breakthrough, reasoning, is behind us.”
I realize that my statements about “AI can already do all our work” have caused quite a stir.
So let me explain and expand on what I mean.
In my opinion, the major breakthrough in AI is a computer with “reasoning” capabilities. This objective has already been achieved.
Not if you present AI… — Sebastian Siemiatkowski (@klarnaseb) January 6, 2025
Although Siemiatkowski says AI is capable of fulfilling his CEO duties, he is “not very excited” about the prospect of his job becoming obsolete.
“My work is a very important part of who I am to me, and realizing that it could become irrelevant is dark,” Siemiatkowski said in the X post. “But I also believe that we have to be honest about what we think is going to happen. And I [would] rather learn and explore rather than pretend it doesn’t exist.
Klarna refused Fortunerequest for additional comments.
A 2023 survey by online education company edX claims some CEOs believe AI could take over their jobs. Nearly half of responding CEOs said they believe “most” or “all” of their work should be fully automated or replaced by AI.
Siemiatkowski is so confident in AI’s capabilities that his company stopped hiring more than a year ago. Now AI is doing the work of hundreds of employees across the enterprise. The Stockholm-based company’s headcount fell 22 percent, to 3,500 people, over the past year, mainly due to retirements, Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg. last December. At the start of this year, the BNPL company had about 200 people using AI to do their primary jobs, he told Bloomberg.. Klarna is currently valued at around $14 billion.
Siemiatkowski said, however, that some Klarna employees are “mobilizing” to deploy as much AI as possible, mainly to earn a little extra money on their salaries.
“We’re going to deliver some of the efficiency improvements that AI brings by increasing the rate at which our employees’ salaries increase,” Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg.
Can AI really take over?
Siemiatkowski says AI’s vast knowledge base, combined with its reasoning capabilities, means the technology can make decisions for a business.
Honu, a technology company that builds decision infrastructure on which AI agents operate, argues the same. Imad Riachi, founder and CEO of Honu, said Fortune AI is becoming so sophisticated so quickly that its complex reasoning is on track to become faster than the human brain. This means that AI will soon be able to evaluate business performance, analyze millions of real-world scenarios, determine business direction and execute strategy in a fraction of the time it takes humans to do the same, he said.
“This is a time of awakening for CEOs, their boards and senior management of existing companies and aspiring business founders,” said Riachi, a former Meta and Goldman Sachs executive. “The unprecedented scope of AI’s decision-making powers demands that leaders have a deeper understanding of its capabilities.”
Other AI leaders are not yet as concerned about the technology’s capabilities to take on leadership positions.
“The idea that AI would do all human jobs, including CEO, is still more speculative than realistic at this point,” said Akash Nigam, CEO of AI avatar company Genies, which received $250 million in funding from Disney CEO Bob Iger.
While AI has made “incredible advances” in data analysis, competing work tasks and content creation, “the CEO role requires not only strategic thinking but probably more importantly, emotional intelligence, adaptability and nuanced leadership – qualities that AI cannot fully replicate.” Again” Nigam said Fortune.
A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on January 6, 2025.
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