Despite the fearmongering by many about artificial intelligence being a job killer, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has a different perspective.
While everyone debates AI taking jobs, Nvidia’s CEO just revealed something nobody saw coming: the workers who survive will be busier than ever.
Jensen Huang delivered this reality check during a Fox Business interview this week, right after his company became the first $4 trillion business in America. His message kills the popular dream that AI will lead to shorter work weeks and more leisure time.
‘Some jobs go away. Every job will be changed as a result of AI,’ Huang told Fox Business anchor Liz Claman.
Elon Musk has a different vision of AI, for it to totally eliminate the need to work, but Huang’s view is opposite.
But then he dropped the bombshell about what happens to the remaining workers: ‘I have to admit I am afraid to say that we are going to be busier in the future than now. The reason for that is a lot of different things that take a long time to do are faster to do.’
His logic is brutal but simple: when you finish tasks faster, you don’t go home early. You take on bigger projects. ‘I’m always waiting for work to get done because I got more ideas, most companies have more ideas to pursue,’ Huang explained. ‘The more productive we are the more opportunity to pursue ideas.’
Some of those bigger projects and greater productivity could even come from AI giving us the freedom to be our own boss. As 70 million freelancers, independent contractors, and self-employed individuals understand, working as an independent professional is not just the ability to have more control and ownership over the work you do; it is an excellent avenue for entrepreneurship and upward mobility, particularly for women and minorities.
Liya Palagashvili, the senior research fellow and director of the Mercatus Center Labor Policy Project at George Mason University, has explored this very concept and offers verifiable evidence that this phenomenon has been occurring over the past several years.
In her research paper, “Artificial Intelligence and the Rise of Independent Work: Early Evidence on Solo Business Formation and Self-Employment,” Palagashvili moved beyond the question of how AI would eliminate jobs and instead asked how workplaces would be changed.
This study asks a different question: whether AI is already changing how work is organized. In particular, AI may be lowering the cost of operating outside a traditional firm by allowing one worker to perform tasks that once required a team, support staff, or firm-based infrastructure.
Which jobs will AI eliminate? That question matters, but it misses another important margin of change. AI may also be reshaping how work is organized, thereby making it easier for individuals to sell their skills directly to clients, customers, and organizations outside the boundaries of the firm.
For example, in writing and publication, one independent writer/editor has found a new niche. I emailed with Theresa Danna, a friend and USC alum, who works with AI companies to fact-check responses to AI prompts from users. While newspapers and magazines are reducing their editorial staff, outside editors who have become fluent in AI and the various platforms can find work across a number of industries, not just publishing. Danna’s work often involves checking for accuracy, exploring ethical considerations, or ensuring the AI response makes sense, is grammatically correct, and concise. Checking for the veracity of each response is also key, so along with those tasks, Danna also submits URLs that support or refute the AI responses.
This is not a new career or an elimination of an old one; it is an expansion on a role that was often siloed within a few industries.
As Palagashvili asserts,
AI may be reducing the advantages of being inside a firm and increasing the feasibility of independent work, solo self-employment, freelancing, and contract-based work.
For independent professionals, solopreneurs, and the self-employed, this presents a unique opportunity to launch their skill sets into a new industry or expand their client base. For an employee looking to launch their own solo business venture, there may be no better time than the present to create and pursue a new business venture made possible through the incorporation of AI.