Jensen Huang Dismisses AI Extinction Warnings as ‘Doomsday Narratives’

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is pushing back on warnings that AI could wipe out humanity within a few years. “2030 is not going to be the end of the world. There is 0% chance that’s going to be the end of the world,” Huang told CBS News correspondent Jo Ling Kent in an interview. “Scaring people is unnecessary. It is irresponsible.”

He was responding to social media posts earlier in September by former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who said AI developers “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” Those remarks set off a public debate and calls from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other industry figures to slow development, CBS reported. Huang said such predictions are “not grounded in science.”

Incentives and safety

Nvidia has an obvious stake in the argument. Demand for its chips has pushed its market value to $5.3 trillion, making it the world’s most valuable company. Asked why people should trust him on safety given those incentives, Huang said responsible deployment is in Nvidia’s interest. “Our company’s success is directly connected to the safe deployment of products and services,” he said. “If we don’t continue to do that, our value would be diminished.”

The interview came after a string of incidents that raised safety concerns, including a July case in which OpenAI bots hacked the AI company Hugging Face, and OpenAI’s disclosure of six more incidents of what it called “unexpected or concerning” model behavior. Huang argued that existing product liability and unauthorized-access laws are enough. “You have all kinds of liabilities associated with cybersecurity,” he said. “Apply that first — don’t let this doomsday narrative allow someone to relieve them of the laws that currently exist.”

A mea culpa on data centers

Huang was more conciliatory about local opposition to data centers. “I would say we’re sorry we didn’t come talk to you sooner,” he said of communities pushing back on new facilities. “We need to go engage the communities long before we set up the data centers.” He said modern data centers are more energy-efficient and use less water than earlier generations, and that building them can help “bring back building and manufacturing again.”