Nvidia CEO Huang: AI More Likely to Augment Jobs Than Replace Them, Contrasting Other AI Leaders' Warnings

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated in an interview published last week that it is unlikely most people will lose a job to AI. He added that it is most likely most people will lose their job to somebody who uses AI, and stressed the need to ensure everybody uses AI. R.

McMaster and Rep. ). Huang's comments contrast with statements from other AI leaders. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the technology will wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs.

A KPMG survey from November found that four in 10 workers fear AI could take their job. A report from AI enterprise platform Writer found that 29% of workers are actively sabotaging their company’s AI strategy. The Writer report also indicated that about one-third of workers sabotaging AI strategy cited fear of AI for doing so.

In an interview last May, Huang said the technology could actually put up to 40 million people back into the workforce. In March, Huang mapped out how AI could transform the workplace, predicting 100 AI agents working alongside every human worker. The Writer report survey showed that 60% of executives said they are considering cutting employees who refuse to adopt AI.

The Writer report further revealed that workers using AI are three times as likely to have gotten a promotion and pay raise last year compared with workers dragging their feet on AI adoption. A recent Anthropic study argues AI is already theoretically capable of performing the majority of tasks associated with white-collar professions, such as law, business, engineering, and management.

Huang explained that a job, the purpose of a job, and the tasks in a job are related but not the same.

At Nvidia, Huang said the most successful employees are those who embrace AI. He noted that software engineers who know how to work with AI are the most popular software engineers at Nvidia and are busier than ever. In his keynote address at the Nvidia GTC conference in March, Huang said the company is offering AI tokens for engineers worth nearly half their salary to attract top talent.

Huang added that companies are looking for recent college grads with sophisticated AI knowledge. These details were reported by @FortuneMagazine. Fortune first convened 'The Smartest People We Know' in 2001, bringing together CEOs and founders, builders and investors, thinkers and doers.

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