AI is taking jobs (not cool, Klarna)

Plus, hurricane season is here. To worry or not to worry? Head back to school with Babbel’s biggest sale ever »]( [StackSkills]( [Welcome To The Futurist]( [Welcome To The Futurist]( [Advertise]( | [Talk To Us](mailto:letschat@getthefuturist.com) | [Shop]( | [Unsubscribe]( [The Futurist is your daily tech, cosmic, and science (both weird or otherwise) newsletter with articles and content curated just for you.]( [/nope] [Klarna CEO reveals plan to reduce workforce by 50% and replace it with AI | Mashable]( [Klarna CEO reveals plan to reduce workforce by 50% and replace it with AI]( “Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski is so bullish on AI that the Swedish buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platform plans to cut its workforce by 50% in the next few years. Speaking to the Financial Times, Siemiatkowski said that Klarna is hoping to scale its workforce down from 3,800 to 2,000 employees. The current employee count was already reduced from 5,000 after Klarna conducted mass layoffs last year. With almost half the workforce at the company, Siemiatkowski plans to shift customer service and marketing duties to AI. ‘Not only can we do more with less, but we can do much more with less,’ he said to the FT.” [// Mashable »]( [/discover] [Babbel - Back-to-school FOMO? Good thing Babbel’s running their biggest sale ever right now | [Partner]]( [Back-to-school FOMO? Good thing Babbel’s running their biggest sale ever right now]( Wishing you could go back to school again? Skip the overpriced textbooks and awkward group projects — Babbel lets you start your own educational, language-learning journey on your terms. Learn from 14 expert-designed courses and perfect your pronunciation with advanced speech recognition tech. No homework. No essays. No pop quizzes. None of those gimmicks that don’t stick. Just tried and proven methods that actually work to help you retain what you’ve learned and encourage fluency. Get lifetime access for 67% off with their biggest sale ever! [Ad] [// Study up »]( [/cosmos] [Scientists achieve highest resolution black hole image ever from Earth | Interesting Engineering]( [Scientists achieve highest resolution black hole image ever from Earth]( “The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has set a new standard for Earth-based observations. Interestingly, the EHT team was able to undertake the ‘highest resolution’ observation from Earth’s surface of a black hole hiding in the heart of the faraway galaxy. … ‘With the EHT, we saw the first images of black holes by detecting radio waves at 230 GHz, but the bright ring we saw, formed by light bending in the black hole’s gravity still looked blurry because we were at the absolute limits of how sharp we could make the images,’ explained Alexander Raymond, paper co-lead.” [// Interesting Engineering »]( [/earth] [Unusually mild Atlantic hurricane season likely to ramp up | Axios]( [Unusually mild Atlantic hurricane season likely to ramp up]( “2024 was forecast to be one of the busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record. Yet Atlantic storm activity is in a near-historic pause. The reduced activity highlights the challenge of long-term forecasting, even as short-term forecasts indicate things will soon kick back up. The causes of the pause come down to a few big factors.” [// Axios »]( [/digital] [StackSocial -You can now get pretty much every app your PC needs for $40 | [Partner] ]( [You can now get pretty much every app your PC needs for $40]( We know you’ve heard of Microsoft Office, and we know that you know why it’s such a popular software suite. Classic apps with familiar user interfaces? Yep. Offline, cloud-free access? Yep. Pay once and keep them all for life? Yes and yes. Just $40 gets you and your Windows computer eight of the web’s best productivity apps for life: no subscriptions, no recurring fees, no joke. See for yourself if the hype is worth it when it comes to this best-selling bundle. (We certainly think it is.) [Ad] [// Be Productive »]( [/pwned] [Is Rings of Power ready to emerge from the shadow of Westeros? | The Ringer]( [Is Rings of Power ready to emerge from the shadow of Westeros?]( “Two years ago, Westeros and Middle-earth went head-to-head in the streaming wars. … By any measure, between these two series, House of the Dragon won the battle of the first seasons: It was more popular with audiences, earned more critical acclaim, and collected more Emmy nominations. But crafting a cultural juggernaut is a marathon, not a sprint, and House of the Dragon didn’t do itself any favors in Season 2. … Could HBO’s loss be Prime Video’s gain?” [// The Ringer »]( [/bites] [// You?? Back in school?? Yep. Study up and become fluent with Babbel’s biggest sale ever. Join today for 67% off »]( [// Here’s a nearly new iPad complete with headphones, a screen protector, and all the fixings »]( [// Wait, now you need something to hold your new iPad (hunching over ain’t gonna cut it anymore). Here’s an ergonomic 8-in-1 stand »]( [/epic] [@fernlichtsicht on Instagram]( [@fernlichtsicht]( Interested in having one of your social posts featured in The Futurist? [// Get in touch »](mailto:letschat@getthefuturist.com) Powered by StackCommerce 73 Market Street | Venice, CA 90291 Copyright © 2023 StackCommerce All rights reserved [Unsubscribe.]( [View this email in your browser.](