• The CEO of payments company Klarna has warned that AI could lead to job cuts and a recession.
• Sebastian Siemiatkowski said he believed AI would increasingly replace white-collar jobs.
• Klarna previously said its AI assistant was doing the work of 700 full-time customer service agents.

The CEO of the Swedish payments company Klarna says that the rise of artificial intelligence could lead to a recession as the technology replaces white-collar jobs.

Speaking on The Times Tech podcast, Sebastian Siemiatkowski said there would be "an implication for white-collar jobs," which he said "usually leads to at least a recession in the short term."

"Unfortunately, I don't see how we could avoid that, with what's happening from a technology perspective," he continued.

Siemiatkowski, who has long been candid about his belief that AI will come for human jobs, added that AI had played a key role in "efficiency gains" at Klarna and that the firm's workforce had shrunk from about 5,500 to 3,000 people in the last two years as a result.

It's not the first time the exec and Klarna have made headlines along these lines.

In February 2024, Klarna boasted that its OpenAI-powered AI assistant was doing the work of 700 full-time customer service agents. The company, most famous for its "buy now, pay later" service, was one of the first firms to partner with Sam Altman's company.

Later that year, Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg TV that he believed AI was already capable of doing "all of the jobs" that humans do and that Klarna had enacted a hiring freeze since 2023 as it looked to slim down and focus on adopting the technology.

However, Siemiatkowski has since dialed back his all-in stance on AI, telling an audience at the firm's Stockholm headquarters in May that his AI-driven customer service cost-cutting efforts had gone too far and that Klarna was planning to now recruit, according to Bloomberg.

"From a brand perspective, a company perspective, I just think it's so critical that you are clear to your customer that there will be always a human if you want," he said.

In the interview with The Times, Siemiatkowski said he felt that many people in the tech industry, particularly CEOs, tended to "downplay the consequences of AI on jobs, white-collar jobs in particular."

"I don't want to be one of them," he said. "I want to be honest, I want to be fair, and I want to tell what I see so that society can start taking preparations."

Some of the top leaders in AI, however, have been ringing the alarm lately, too.

Anthropic's leadership has been particularly outspoken about the threat AI poses to the human labor market.

The company's CEO, Dario Amodei, recently said that AI may eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years. "We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming," Amodei said. "I don't think this is on people's radar."

Similarly, his colleague, Mike Krieger, Anthropic's chief product officer, said he is hesitant to hire entry-level software engineers over more experienced ones who can also leverage AI tools.

The silver lining is that AI also brings the promise of better and more fulfilling work, Krieger said.

Humans, he said, should focus on "coming up with the right ideas, doing the right user interaction design, figuring out how to delegate work correctly, and then figuring out how to review things at scale — and that's probably some combination of maybe a comeback of some static analysis or maybe AI-driven analysis tools of what was actually produced."

• Ark Invest's Cathie Wood has weighed in on the public feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
• Wood said the feud reveals how much Musk's companies rely on the US government.
• Trump said Saturday he had no desire to fix his relationship with the Tesla CEO.

The public feud between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump has shown investors just how much control the US government has over Musk's companies, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood says.

"I think the way this is evolving is Elon, Tesla, and investors are beginning to understand more and more just how much the government has control here," Wood said in a video posted to the company's YouTube channel on Friday.

Many of Musk's companies have key links to the government and have received billions of dollars in federal loans, contracts, tax credits, and subsidies over the years.

"Elon is involved in companies that are depending on the government," Wood said, pointing to Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink as examples.

SpaceX's COO, Gwynne Shotwell, said last year that the company has $22 billion worth of federal contracts. Neuralink, Musk's brain chip company, is subject to FDA regulation, and a less friendly regulatory environment could impact Tesla's robotaxi rollout plans. Tesla stock fell more than 14% on Thursday after Musk and Trump became locked in a series of increasingly bitter clashes.

The feud appeared to begin, at least publicly, on Tuesday, after Musk criticized Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill." He called it a "disgusting abomination" and said it would increase the national budget deficit.

Tensions rose fast between the once-close allies on Thursday. Trump threatened to cut Musk's government contracts and Musk said SpaceX would immediately begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft — which returned stranded NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore from the International Space Station in March.

Musk later retracted that threat, which Wood said was a sign he was "beginning to walk this back."

Wood said the rift with Trump could, in part, be Musk's attempt to further decouple himself from the Trump administration. Musk announced in April that he would be stepping back from his government work.

"One of the hypotheses out there is that what has happened was partly — not entirely — orchestrated," Wood said. "Clearly, there has been some brand damage to Tesla, which he readily admits, and I think he's trying to disengage from the government and being associated with one party or the other."

Moving forward, Wood said neither Trump nor Musk needed to get "bogged down" with a fight and that she believed both would eventually heed that reasoning.

She also appeared to be confident that Musk could make the situation work for him. She said Musk "works really well under pressure" and that "he creates a lot of that chaos and pressure himself."

Trump, however, signaled Saturday that he had no desire to fix his relationship with the SpaceX CEO anytime soon.

"I have no intention of speaking to him," Trump told NBC News.

"I think it's a very bad thing, because he's very disrespectful. You could not disrespect the office of the President," he added.

Vice President JD Vance struck a somewhat friendlier tone when asked about the possibility of reconciliation during a Thursday interview with podcaster Theo Von.

Vance said that while he thought it was a "huge mistake" for Musk to "go after the president," he hoped Musk "figures it out" and "comes back into the fold."

• Reid Hoffman said he uses OpenAI's Deep Research every day to have a "lens" on AI's future.
• He said using "chain-of-thought" models offered an insight into how these products could be "workers in the future."
• He added that "a bunch of folks" were in the race to develop the best agentic AI.

Reid Hoffman has said he uses a specific tool daily to gain insight into how AI products could be "workers in the future."

The LinkedIn cofounder and investor said he did "at least" one prompt daily with OpenAI's Deep Research tool, an agentic tool for automating complex multi-step internet research. He also said there was many companies building "strong" offerings in the race to make AI agents.

Hoffman, who stood down as an OpenAI director in 2023, citing potential conflicts of interest with his other AI investments, was asked about the startup during an interview on Bloomberg Television on Friday.

He said he was using Deep Research once a day, and that it "gives you the lens to the amplification we're going to get with these products as workers in the future."

The rise of agentic AI, which can independently act on a person's behalf and make decisions without human intervention, has fuelled speculation about how and when AI might replace human workers.

A group of Carnegie Mellon researchers ran a virtual simulation designed to test how AI agents fare in real-world professional scenarios. They found that the top-performing model finished less than one-quarter of all tasks.

"While agents may be used to accelerate some portion of the tasks that human workers are doing, they are likely not a replacement for all tasks at the moment," Graham Neubig, a computer science professor at CMU and one of the researchers, previously told BI.

Hoffman, who cofounded Manas AI, said he saw no clear leader in the race to develop agentic AI, saying there was "a bunch of folks who are doing very strong things," and "not just OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google."

Bloomberg interviewer Ed Ludlow told Hoffman he was increasingly talking to AI in voice mode, which he called "a psychological thing that, as a consumer, you kind of have to get over."

• Trump and Zelenskyy met at the Vatican before Pope Francis' funeral.
• This was their first meeting since a heated exchange at the White House in February.
• "Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic," Zelenskyy later wrote on X.

Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met on Saturday — their first encounter since a heated exchange at the White House two months ago.

The two leaders held a discussion inside St. Peter's Basilica, ahead of the Pope's funeral, with French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer present during the initial moments.

Zelenskyy and Trump had not met since their heated exchange in the Oval Office on February 28, in which Trump said of Ukraine's war against Russia, "You're either going to make a deal or we're out."

Four days later, Trump announced a pause in US military aid, and the EU declared "an era of rearmament," as it unveiled a defense funding boost.

The Oval Office meeting was in the glare of the world's press, but photos of the Rome meeting show Trump and Zelenskyy seated close together, without aides or interpreters.

Andrii Yermak, a senior aide to Zelenskyy, shared a photo of the leaders in St. Peter's Basilica on Telegram. "Constructive," he wrote.

Steven Cheung, White House communications director, called it a "very productive discussion."

Posting X, Zelenskyy said the encounter had been a "good meeting."

"We discussed a lot one on one. Hoping for results on everything we covered. Protecting lives of our people. Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and lasting peace that will prevent another war from breaking out. Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results," he said.

The Rome meeting comes after Steve Witkoff, Trump's designated peace envoy, travelled to Moscow for discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov said the talks centered on "the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine."

Following Witkoff's return, Trump said on Truth Social that "most of the major points are agreed to" and that a cease-fire deal between Kyiv and Moscow was "very close."

As he prepared to leave for Rome on Friday, Trump told reporters that the talks were "very fragile." He has also warned that the US might halt its mediation efforts if a deal isn't reached soon.

After the meeting on Saturday, Zelenskyy was greeted with applause when he walked out of St Peter's Basilica after paying his respects in front of the pontiff's coffin.

Trump later wrote a long post on Truth Social, in which he called the war in Ukraine "Sleepy Joe Biden's War, not mine. It was a loser from day one."

The long post ended, "There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days. It makes me think that maybe he doesn't want to stop the war, he's just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through "Banking" or "Secondary Sanctions?" Too many people are dying!!!"

• Pope Francis, the 266th head of the Roman Catholic Church, died on April 21 at the age of 88.
• Trump, Macron, Zelenskyy, and other world leaders attended the funeral Mass on Saturday.
• Over 250,000 people gathered to pay their respects to the late pontiff, Vatican authorities said.

After 12 years of serving as the 266th head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis died on April 21 at the age of 88.

Thousands of people paid their respects as the pontiff's body lay in state inside St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City in the days before his burial in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

Saturday's funeral Mass was attended by world leaders, including President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

A new pope will be chosen by the College of Cardinals in a papal election known as the conclave.

Photos show powerful moments from the late pope's funeral proceedings.

After Pope Francis' death was announced on Easter Monday, mourners assembled for an evening rosary prayer in St. Peter's Square.

Visitors left flowers, candles, and photos of the late pope.

The late pope lay in state in an open wooden coffin on Tuesday at Casa Santa Marta, his papal residence.

On Wednesday, his body was transferred to St. Peter's Basilica, one of the holiest sites in the Catholic church, for three days of public viewing.

His coffin was placed in front of the Altar of the Confession, which sits above what is believed to be the tomb of Saint Peter, one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles.

After leading the procession to the Basilica, the Cardinals conducted a service featuring liturgical readings and hymns.

Tens of thousands of people waited in line to enter St. Peter's Basilica and pay their respects to Pope Francis.

On Saturday, Pope Francis' funeral Mass took place in front of St. Peter's Basilica.

Vatican authorities said more than 250,000 people watched on during the ceremony, which included Gregorian chants and Latin verses.

Dozens of world leaders attended the Holy event, including Trump. Macron, Zelenskyy, and Biden also attended.

After the Mass, the coffin carrying the Pope's body was brought to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, his final resting place.

• Inventor James Dyson has talked about the importance of embracing "failure" in work and life.
• "I've always said mine is a life of failure," the British billionaire told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.
• He's created thousands of prototypes over his career and also scrapped plans to enter the EV market.

Inventor James Dyson is famous for his namesake vacuums which use his patented cyclone technology. His net worth is $16.8 billion per Bloomberg's Billionaire Index.

But he says that, "mine is a life of failure."

In a video interview with The Wall Street Journal published Saturday. Dyson — who said he created 5,127 prototypes over five years before launching his bagless vacuum cleaner in 1993 — said that embracing failure was essential to life.

"It's true for writers and filmmakers and all sorts of people. It's a life of failure. It takes a long time before you find the one that works," he said. "You just have to get used to that."

Dyson, 77, said he enjoyed the misfires and struggles he's had across his career, saying that real wisdom comes from experience.

"At school, you're taught to get the answer right the first time," he said. While a clever student may get to the answer quickly, he said, they are at a disadvantage to those who take their time getting to an answer, as they haven't "viscerally experienced failure and overcoming failure."

For Dyson, resilience and adaptability are some of the most important skills someone can learn. "Life is about making things work," he said.

He continued: "That's what you have to do. It's trial and error. When something works, it's less challenging, it's less interesting."

Aside from the many prototypes it took him to invent the first vacuum with his namesake brand, Dyson famously abandoned plans to enter the electric car market in 2019 after spending more than $600 million on developing a vehicle that he came to realize was not commercially viable.

"The route to success is never linear. This is not the first project which has changed direction and it will not be the last," he wrote in a letter announcing the decision.

He said of his scrapped EV vehicle, "I could see that it was just too risky."