Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: AI fears designed to generate cybersecurity business

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dismissed recent AI fears as a way for the cybersecurity sector to generate new business.

Why it matters: Huang — whose comments on AI are highly influential among investors — risks losing control of the narrative amid growing fears of widespread destruction.

Driving the news: Huang said Thursday at a Goldman Sachs conference that "the reason why there's so much conversation today about cybersecurity is because the industry is getting ready to launch some products."

"And what better way to create demand than to create a problem?" he said at the event. "Who doesn't want their market to be hysterical about their product and line up around the corner for it?"

His comments echoed similar remarks he made in an interview in July with Axios' Mike Allen : " The fact that this is going to be the end of humanity — it's complete nonsense. The fact that this is going to destroy half of the American jobs is complete nonsense."

The big picture: The conversation over the trajectory of AI exploded this week when an Anthropic researcher abruptly resigned his post and warned that AI could soon destroy humanity.

"The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade," Anthropic AI researcher Jacob Coxon wrote on X. "This is not a marketing stunt."

Zoom in: Huang has been maintaining the outlook of a typical AI techno-optimist on three fronts:

That it's not a bubble ginned up by Nvidia's own circular investments .

Yes, but: Huang has a vested interest in painting the AI future as healthy and hopeful.

The more it grows — and the fewer restrictions that are placed on it — the more chips he can sell.

What they're saying: "You can't ignore that he's talking his own book, but I don't think it's accurate to see his narrative as being merely self-serving — I think he is genuinely a techno-optimist," University of Michigan business professor Erik Gordon tells Axios.

But "I think Jensen's narrative is losing ground to the narrative grounded in fear," Gordon says.

Before the latest hubbub over the Anthropic researcher's warning came a screed from Bill Gates warning that AI is poised to wipe out countless jobs.

"I think Jensen's narrative would be more credible if he spent more time acknowledging the other fears and specifically addressing why we should be less fearful," Gordon says.

One area where Huang is getting more direct is the concern over Nvidia's growing number of investments in its own customers and its use of its own capital to transform chips into investable assets.