At a recent Stanford Graduate School of Business panel, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and California Congressman Ro Khanna discussed some burning topics about artificial intelligence—from innovation and competition to adoption and skepticism. While AI-related job panic has infiltrated different industries, Huang doubled down on his belief that the technology will do more good than harm to the job market.
“The narratives of AI destroying jobs is not going to help America,” Huang said. “First of all, it’s just false.” Huang offered the example that the most popular and successful software engineers at Nvidia—the $5 trillion company where agentic AI has been integrated within the company—are those who know how to work with AI.
At the same time, he said, software engineers “are busier than ever,” because of the time AI tools save when it comes to coding.
“Your [AI] agents are harassing you, micromanaging you and you’re busier than ever, and yet our company is able to do more,” Huang said. “We’re doing things faster. We’re doing it at a larger scale, we’re thinking about doing things that we never imagined.”
Instead of AI wiping out jobs, the billionaire founder of the leading AI computing company sees infinite possibilities for the future. “The fact that we now have AI assistants help us, we could explore more space, do better work, do things at a greater scale, do things more cost-effectively, do things better,” Huang said. “And so the jobs didn’t disappear. The task was automated.” Huang called the computing technology industry “one of America’s national treasures.”
“We’re creating so many manufacturing jobs in plumbing and construction, electricians, and now, you know, fine tool outfitters,” he continued. “Their salaries are doubling, tripling.”
“The fact of the matter is, it is unlikely most people will lose a job to AI,” Huang said. “It is most likely that most people will lose their job to somebody who uses AI. And so we have to make sure that everybody uses AI.”
Huang’s proposal sounds good in theory. But even as Americans adopt the technology at increasing rates, skepticism about AI is on the rise—especially among young people.
Recent Gallup data shows that Gen Z excitement about AI dropped 14 percentage points to 22% this year. Nearly a third of workers have admitted to sabotaging their company’s AI strategy, too. Another recent report shows that AI adoption policies have created tension between managers and employees.
“They don’t trust us,” Congressman Khanna said during the panel. “Even though we invented AI, the highest skepticism of AI is in America, and why is that? Why is it that other countries are more trusting of it? Because they don’t trust the elite. They don’t trust the people in Congress. They don’t trust the president. They don’t trust the business leaders. They don’t trust the media. They feel like we have not delivered for them. So, we have an obligation to figure out how we’re actually going to get this AI revolution to work for everyone.”
Because of this, Huang says leaders have to “demystify” AI and “make sure people aren’t afraid of it.”
Huang maintained that by the end of this technological evolution, more jobs will have been created—and he left the crowd with a few parting notes of optimism.
“This is a better time to be in school and graduating from school than ever,” he said. “I hear the opposite, but I see, personally, nothing but extraordinary opportunities ahead.”
In a workforce where finding an entry-level job feels like finding a needle in a haystack, it remains to be seen how many extraordinary opportunities will actually exist.