One of the biggest concerns the AI revolution has created is the fear that automation — through generative AI, robotics and more — will replace human workers and eliminate jobs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Huang, as leader of a huge AI company, isn’t as worried as the rest of us.
Huang started by pointing out the workforce shortages in manufacturing, an industry that’s vital to AI — you can’t have millions of agents working without a lot of data centers powering them.
“Employment is very high, and yet many companies don’t have enough labor,” Huang said. “Robots will fill in that gap.”
Huang theorizes that as robotic automation fills in these gaps, the world’s economies will grow, which will lead companies to hire more. But like a lot of AI and labor experts have saidour jobs in an AI world may be different. Instead of doing tasks yourself, you may be managing or supervising a robot or AI agent, Huang said.
But as with any technological revolution, there will be job losses because of AI. Legacy tech companies know this — it’s why tech stocks for companies such as Salesforce and Workday fell dramatically last month as Anthropic’s AI proved it could massively disrupt their operations.
We have to keep in mind that Huang clearly has a vested interest in ensuring AI doesn’t crash the economy and eliminate all roles. If I were the CEO of the world’s biggest company, I wouldn’t be so worried about AI taking my job, either. In a clear, if unrelatable, moment, Huang talked about how AI has made us busier than ever.
“When was the last time you sat on a rocking chair on your porch and drank a glass of lemonade and watched the sun go down?” he asked, only somewhat hyperbolic. “We’re busier than ever.”