Elon Musk recently insisted that our robot-filled future will allow humans to collect free money for doing nothing, while bots do all the labor. But Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang doesn’t seem to be buying that narrative. In fact, Huang seems to think advancements in AI and robotics are going to mean that humans will be busier than ever in the world of tomorrow.
Huang appeared on Fox Business on Thursday, where he talked about the controversy surrounding selling chips to China, Nvidia’s success as a $4 trillion company, and the potential for the AI bubble to burst (he doesn’t think it will, despite what Sam Altman has suggested).
Huang was also asked about Nvidia’s Jetson Thor “robot brain” and how robotics might revolutionize the way that we all live in the future.
“I mean, we want to know how you see robots eventually, I guess, making decisions without human prompts. And where does this eventually take us?” Fox Business host Liz Claman asked. “I’m asking you to put that futurist hat on.”
Huang said robots would be everywhere and “everything that moves will be robotic” in the future.
“There will be robotic humanoid robots that are very general-purpose. We’re gonna see robotic systems of all different kinds. They’re gonna be in hospitals doing robotic surgery. They’re gonna be in factories building things. They’re gonna be in farms doing agriculture. I mean, it’s just incredible the number of robotic systems,” said Huang.
The Nvidia CEO went on to say that every industrial company will have factories that use robots and AI, and that his firm will be supplying the tools to make that happen, calling it a “really exciting future.” But Claman wanted to know if that means people will have “more free time” from all the productivity gains.
“So that really becomes the big question. How do you envision our world changing?” Claman asked. “Do we start to see every country go to a four-day workweek because productivity gains from AI have been so meaningful? I mean, do you see the chatbots become people’s friends so dating apps go away? In your mind, what are those future prospects?”
Claman’s ideas about going to a four-day workweek are both rooted in long-held ideas of 20th-century futurism, but have also received renewed attention from guys like Elon Musk, who insist that it’s precisely what’s going to happen eventually thanks to AI and robots. And while Huang suggested a four-day workweek would be nice, he said humans will actually have more work in some ways.
“I have to admit that I’m afraid to say that we are going to be busier in the future than now. And the reason for that is because a lot of different things that take a long time to do are now faster to do. And I’m always waiting for work to get done because I’ve got more ideas,” said Huang. “Most countries, most companies have more ideas than we know what to pursue.”
Huang did try to have it both ways, insisting that he was hopeful humans would have something like a shorter workweek in the future.
“And so the more productive we are, the more opportunity we get to go pursue new ideas,” Huang continued. “I fully expect GDP to grow. I expect productivity to increase. I actually expect us to have more things to do. It is probably the case—and Liz, I’m hopeful for that day too—so that we have four-day work weeks. And so that we could spend more time on the weekends with family and get some reading done, and do some traveling. And nothing is better than that.”
But Huang put it all in historical perspective.
“We came from a world of seven-day work weeks,” said Huang. “And now we’re in five-day work weeks. And every industrial revolution leads to some change in social behavior. But I expect the economy to be doing very well because of AI and automation. And I expect us to enrich our lives. Life quality will get better, of course, over time. Some jobs will go away. Many jobs will be new and invented. But one thing for sure, every job will be changed as a result of AI.”
Unlike Musk, Huang clearly doesn’t believe the hype that everyone will be lounging around collecting free government money. Probably because that would require a political change, not a technological one. And it’s not his job to sell politics. He’s here to sell tech.
Nvidia’s stock price slumped on Friday as investors digested Wednesday’s earnings report. Sales were strong at $46.7 billion, roughly in line with expectations from analysts, but data-center revenue didn’t meet expectations, which has given AI watchers the jitters over whether the AI bubble could be about to burst.
Read the full article here
