Nvidia's Huang: Don't mention the AI-pocalypse

Jensen Huang wants the world to stop fretting about AI and start building with it.

At Nvidia's GTC event in Berlin, he dismissed predictions of human extinction, defended AI's job prospects, and pitched a $4,000 computer as the family robot.

The Nvidia chief's relentless optimism occasionally gave way to irritation during a question-and-answer session.

"If we don't describe a future worthy to be part of, then we're not going to lead people there," he said.

"We have to describe a future worthy of creating.

We have to describe a future not of fear, but of optimism.

Who wants to create a future that's worse than today's? We don't have to work hard to create a future worse than today.

We just let it happen, isn't that right?" Huang said that we still have to ask the hard questions about safety and jobs, but "it's important, of course, that we don't make it up.

It is not helpful in describing an optimistic future when you say that it will be the end of the human civilization.

First of all, it's not true.

It's made up.

I know it gets headlines," he said, dismissing such stories as clickbait.

When asked if AI really makes people more productive, he explained that there are two ways to think about that: either it helps you do the same old thing more efficiently, or it helps you do things you couldn't before.

"Most of engineering, most of design, has to do with exploring options.