Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took a phone call from US President Donald Trump during a panel discussion on Monday, allowing the Republican to dismiss dangers posed by artificial intelligence (AI) as a “hoax.”
Huang was on stage at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles when he received the call from Trump. During the call, Trump criticised the push to slow the pace of AI development as politically motivated or a Chinese scheme.
The AI pushback is “just playing right into the hands of a lot of people that don’t want to see it happen. And that could be political people. It could also be China,” Trump said on the phone.
Deep Dive
What prompted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to take a call from Donald Trump during the AI panel discussion?
Why do some tech leaders, including Dario Amodei and Sam Altman, advocate for slowing down AI development?
How did Trump justify his opposition to tighter regulations on AI?
Huang agreed with the US President, saying Trump had seen through the complexities of the issue.
The issue emerged after a former Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, quit the company, claiming that AI could “kill humanity by the end of the decade” and that Anthropic and OpenAI were “gambling with our lives.” Calls have grown to curb the pace of development. Since then, multiple AI scientists have quit citing similar issues and heads of three of the biggest AI firms, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and xAI’s Elon Musk, have agreed in public that the world needs to slow down AI development.
{{/usCountry}}The issue emerged after a former Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, quit the company, claiming that AI could “kill humanity by the end of the decade” and that Anthropic and OpenAI were “gambling with our lives.” Calls have grown to curb the pace of development. Since then, multiple AI scientists have quit citing similar issues and heads of three of the biggest AI firms, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and xAI’s Elon Musk, have agreed in public that the world needs to slow down AI development.
{{/usCountry}}On Saturday, Amodei published a 3,800-word essay, proposing a slowdown. The essay was later endorsed by Altman and Musk
But Trump and Huang don't seem to be on board with the notion, although the Nvidia CEO praised an Anthropic PBC researcher who resigned over the fears.
“The employee, Jacob Coxon, was courageous to voice his concerns. Whistleblowers should be taken seriously inside organisations,” he said.
Nvidia CEO downplays AI risks
Downplaying AI risks, Jensen Huang said the panic has created a false choice between fast innovation and AI safety.
Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, whose chips help run artificial intelligence models, has been the top beneficiary of a massive AI infrastructure build-out. Donald Trump, meanwhile, has emerged as a fierce advocate for data centre construction, even in the face of growing opposition.
Trump criticised US states for refusing to give permits for the building of new data centres. Such facilities make people and states wealthy, he said.
“It’s the oil of the next 20, 25 years,” he said. “It’s bigger than the internet.”
US tech stocks slumped on Monday over concerns about a potential deceleration in spending. Shares of Nvidia fell 3.4 per cent.