Jensen Huang, the cheerful CEO of Nvidia, believes American workers have nothing to fear from artificial intelligence (AI) replacing jobs. During a conversation with MSNBC’s Becky Quick at the Milken Institute on Monday night, Huang argued that AI is a massive job creator, not a cause of widespread unemployment as “AI doomers” suggest.
The discussion covered various topics, but a main theme was the ongoing worry about the AI industry’s economic impact and whether Americans should truly be concerned. Quick asked at one point, “This is happening so quickly. Is there a bigger dislocation than we’ve seen in the past that leads to greater inequality? And what do we do about that?”
Throughout the evening, Huang remained very optimistic. “AI creates jobs,” he stated, adding that “AI is [the] United States’ best opportunity to re-industrialize” itself. Huang pointed out that the AI industry runs on new types of industrial factories. These factories produce the hardware that forms the crucial backbone of the AI business, and Nvidia notably sells a lot of that hardware. These factories need workers, as does the rest of the rapidly growing AI industry.
Huang explained that if AI automates a specific task, it doesn’t mean a person’s entire job will disappear. He believes people who think this “misunderstand that the purpose of a job and the task of a job are related” but are not the same. In simple terms, Huang’s argument is that even if AI takes over a small part of a job, the broader role an employee plays in a company will likely remain.
Huang also criticized those who claim AI will dominate humanity or wipe out large parts of the economy. He said, “My greatest concern is that we scare…people—all the people that we’re telling these science fiction stories to, to the point where AI is so unpopular in the United States, or people are so afraid of it, that they don’t actually engage it.”
Ironically, much of this “doomer” talk has come from the AI industry itself. Critics suggest such exaggerated claims are a marketing trick to create excitement for products that aren’t nearly as capable as the rhetoric implies. The long-term economic impact of AI is still unknown. However, respected financial and academic groups have suggested that AI could eliminate as much as 15% of jobs in the U.S. over the next few years.
