Commander of multi-trillion dollar computing hardware empire Jensen Huang thinks everyone should stop being so negative about AI and all the ways it could potentially upend civilization, because it’s a “doomer narrative” that’s “not helpful to society,” TechSpot reports.
The Nvidia chief made these remarks during a recent episode of the No Priors podcast, in which he more or less dismissed dire predictions for AI’s future as nothing but science fiction.
“I think we’ve done a lot of damage with very well-respected people who have painted a doomer narrative, end of the world narrative, science fiction narrative,” Huang said. “And I appreciate that many of us grew up and enjoyed science fiction, but it’s not helpful. It’s not helpful to people. It’s not helpful to the industry. It’s not helpful to society. It’s not helpful to the governments.”
“Doomer messages causes policy, and that policy may affect the industry in some way,” he added.
Scrambling his take somewhat Huang then caveated that he doesn’t totally dismiss everything that AI critics have to say.
“It’s too simplistic to say that everything that the doomers are saying are irrelevant,” Huang said. “That’s not true. A lot of very sensible things are being said,” he added, neglecting to provide any examples.
Nvidia’s chips are essential for training AI models, and the rabid demand for them has catapulted the chipmaker to a nearly $5 trillion valuation. To keep the gravy train going, Huang has sometimes been even more of an AI booster than the actual AI companies themselves. When Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI could erase half of entry-level white collar jobs in the next five years, Huang countered that Amodei was just fearmongering to make it seem like Anthropic was the only company responsible enough to build AI.
And to be fair to Huang, it’s a good point, with a lot of apocalyptic-sounding warnings of AI risks tending to distract from its more mundane issues. Nonetheless, Huang has made plenty more outlandish AI claims himself, such as reportedly telling his employees that they’re “insane” if they don’t use AI to do everything — nevermind his out-of-touch proclamation that AI won’t take your job, but will instead make you work even harder.
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