The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is a fascinating and terrifying subject.
While AI brings positive gains for our little planet we call home, there's also a good chance it will cause massive unrest as it gets smarter and becomes a much better employee than you or I.
Besides the ever more frequent reports of significant layoffs and outright job losses in the wake of AI's rise, the heads of many of the leading AI firms are also sounding the alarm.
But is the situation as bad as some of AI's most powerful players are making it out to be?
NVIDIA is currently the hottest commodity on the AI market right now, as its chips are the ones that everyone wants powering their AI models. NVIDIA recently became the first $4 trillion company, made possible largely by the ongoing AI race.
That gives NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's comments on AI a lot of weight.
Huang was recently interviewed by CNN's Fareed Zakaria, in which Huang expressed a bit of optimism alongside some pessimism about AI and the impact it's having on jobs (via Tom's Hardware).
"If the world runs out of ideas, then productivity gains translate to job loss," said Huang, as he responded to a question about Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's current outlook on job replacement. "The fundamental thing is this: do we have more ideas left in society? And if we do, if we’re more productive, we’ll be able to grow."
Huang is, of course, responding here to Amodei's opinion that AI could slash up to 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs. The quote (via Axios) from Anthropic's Amodei doesn't sugar-coat the current outlook for the future:
"We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming. It's a very strange set of dynamics, where we're saying: 'You should be worried about where the technology we're building is going."
Reading through this battle of words, it doesn't seem like Huang is exactly debating Amodei's idea that AI could push employment rates beyond what we've ever seen.
Instead, Huang believes that the workforce, just like it has done plenty of times in the past during technological revolutions, will endure on the back of our ingenuity. Huang reminds us that "even in the era of computers," there has been a rise in productivity and employment.
"Everybody's jobs will be affected. Some jobs will be lost. Many jobs will be created, and what I hope is that the productivity gains that we see in all the industries will lift society," said Huang.
AI CEOs argue over the breadth of job loss while we worry about keeping the lights on
This isn't the first time that Huang has responded to Amodei's beliefs in a public manner. Huang, in a previous interview at VivaTech 2025, stated:
"I pretty much disagree with almost everything he [Amodei] says. He thinks AI is so scary, but only they should do it."
Huang and Amodei are far from the only significant AI figures spreading the same ideas.
Bill Gates has said that he believes generative AI will eventually be able to take over traditional human roles in the workplace, leaving us, organic beings, useless for most things.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has stated that he believes entire job sectors will go extinct as AI continues to grow, while Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman has stated that he believes coding jobs could be gone within two years.
I certainly see where these CEOs are coming from; their technology has the potential to completely rewrite human progress, and they don't want to be skewered for negative fallout when it does.
However, on the other side of the argument, these CEOs could be using this doom-and-gloom strategy as a marketing tool.
There is little risk to CEOs making grandiose predictions of job cuts that will appease shareholders, given that even if these claims are untrue that there won't be much public backlash.
How everything plays out remains to be seen, but Huang's opinion that all jobs will be affected doesn't seem too far off.
A 2024 Adecco Group study on 2,000 C-Suite executives from around the world demonstrates that 41% of those polled believe they will employ fewer humans within five years because of AI.
Only 46% of executives asked say they plan to move human workers replaced by AI to new roles.
So, what jobs will those displaced by AI take on? I don't have an answer, but Huang believes that we, as a society will figure it out. Worried about your job? Just think harder!
