Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: Humanity will use AI positively if access to artificial intelligence is 'democratised'

Jensen Huang, like Jack Ma, takes a positive view of artificial intelligence

Like Alibaba's Jack Ma, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang believes that artificial intelligence will have a positive impact on humanity, and that it will ultimately be put to good - rather than evil - use.

That was the message from Huang in a one-to-one interview with V3 during Nvidia's GPU conference in Munich this week.

"I think the open dialogue [about artificial intelligence] is great. There are a lot of people thinking about [AI] and thinking about how we advance the technology in good ways," said Huang.

"AI is one of the most important inventions in the history of humanity. Its potential to bring joy, productivity is surely unquestionable, but you could also imagine these powerful technologies used in improper ways

"We at Nvidia believe that the best way to keep the tech in good hands is to democratise it. That's why Nvidia's GPU technology, and CUDA, are open. It's in every single cloud, it's in every single computer and we make it available to anybody who wants to use it.

"The benefit is that there are more good-hearted people than there are less good-hearted people, and if you simply give them access, they will keep it out of harm's way. The collective good nature of humanity will keep it out of harm's way."

It's a good job, too, as Huang believes that robo-taxis - fully automated vehicles aimed at the ride-haling economy - could arrive on roads within the next two years, even before Level 4 self-driving vehicles - those that require a human to be present for safety reasons - are given the green light.

"Although on one hand, the process is more complex, it's also much more simple because it's a service. You can limit the range of your service, and you can geofence it," he said.

"Yes, technology is much more complex because there's no driver in the car. Nonetheless, I believe robotaxi services will arrive in the next couple of years."

Eventually, Huang expects AI-powered self-driving vehicles to account for 100 per cent of the automotive industry.

"I believe 100 per cent, there's not a bone in my body that doesn't believe this, that 100 per cent of the $100tn dollar automotive industry will be autonomous. Everything with wheels will be autonomous."

But does that mean humans will eventually forget how to drive, and what driving was?

"I think it's a bit like horseback riding and bicycles. There are people who do it for sport. I do believe that someday cars will become the same because the need to drive goes away but the desire to drive does not."

"Our approach is going to help us become one of the key players in the automotive industry, and I think that the revolution will be gigantic."

Nvidia is doing a number of big things in the world of artificial intelligence at the moment, based or branching off from its GPU technology.

This week, the company announced Pegasus, the 'world's first' AI supercomputer designed to power future 'robotaxis', and it gave developers access to Holodeck, a virtual design lab intended to bring AI to a physically-simulated virtual reality environment.