Jensen Huang says an incorrect nine-year-old prediction about AI shows why it won’t destroy jobs

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is more optimistic than those who predict AI will destroy people’s jobs, and he used a nine-year-old prediction to demonstrate why.

During a wide-ranging conversation about AI on The Joe Rogan Experience, Huang referred to a prediction made in 2016 by Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist and ex-vice president at Google who is known as the “Godfather of AI.”

Hinton said then that “people should stop training as radiologists now” because, in five years, AI would be better than humans at image recognition.

“What’s ironic, though, is that the number of radiologists has actually grown,” Huang told Rogan, adding: “Today, just about every radiologist is using AI in some way.”

To understand AI’s impact on jobs, “you have to go back to what is the purpose of a job,” Huang added.

“The purpose of a radiologist is to diagnose disease, not to study the image. The image studying is simply a task in service of diagnosing the disease,” he added.

He said that, as AI made image studying faster and more precise, radiologists became able to do more tests, which in turn meant hospitals had more clients.

“When they have better economics, they hire more radiologists,” he added.

A study by the American College of Radiology, published in February, predicted the number of radiologists in America would grow by up to 40% between 2023 and 2055.

In March, the New York Times revisited Hinton’s prediction. It reported Hinton had told it he didn’t “make clear that he was speaking purely about image analysis, and was wrong on timing but not the direction.”

In May, Huang told the Milken Institute’s Global Conference: “You’re not going to lose your job to an AI, but you’re going to lose your job to someone who use AI.”

He also dismissed a prediction early this year from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who said that 50% of entry-level jobs would be destroyed as AI becomes more capable.

On the podcast, Huang said that some jobs that can be more easily automated will go, but that this will likely create new industries.

“I’m super excited about the robots Elon’s working on. It’s still a few years away. When it happens, there’s a whole new industry of technicians and people who have to manufacture the robots,” he said.

“You’re going to have a whole apparel industry for robots. You’re going to have mechanics for robots. And you have people who come to maintain your robots,” he added.