This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has a vision for the future — and some advice for the generations that will have to navigate it.
In a recently released interview on Cleo Abram’s “Huge Conversations,” recorded on January 7, Huang said he expected massive leaps in what he called “human robotics” within the next half decade and a broadening in the applications of artificial intelligence.
Multiple companies across both the US and China, among other countries, are working to launch and scale the production of humanoid robots for use in manufacturing and consumer applications.
“The last 10 years was really about the science of AI,” the Nvidia cofounder said. “The next 10 years, we’re going to have plenty of science of AI, but the next 10 years is going to be the application science of AI. The fundamental science versus the application science.”
AI will become pervasive, Huang said, weaving its way into nearly every industry.
“The applied research, the application side of AI now becomes: How can I apply AI to digital biology?” Huang said. “How can I apply AI to climate technology? How can I apply AI to agriculture, to fishery, to robotics, to transportation, optimizing logistics? How can I apply AI to, you know, teaching?”
Huang’s advice to future generations is simple: Learn how to use the technology in its various forms, including how to craft smart prompts.
“If I were a student today, the first thing I would do is to learn AI,” Huang said. “How do I learn to interact with ChatGPT, how do I learn to interact with Gemini Pro, and how do I learn to interact with Grok? Learning how to interact with AI is not unlike being someone who is really good at asking questions.”
Huang, who is 61, said his generation had to ask: “How do we use computers to do our jobs better?” He said the next generation should be asking: “How can I use AI to do my job better?”
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has echoed the sentiments when asked what students should study, citing the experience of one of his daughters, who used Meta AI to illustrate a story she was writing.
“I think the most important thing is just, like, learning how to think critically and learning values when you’re young,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang.
Huang took the idea further, posing a question: What if people had round-the-clock access to skills they’d never developed?
The Nvidia CEO pondered what would happen, for instance, if someone had a software programmer in their pocket to take their “seed of an idea” and allow that person to gain access to a “prototype” without knowing how to manufacture it.
“How would that change my life, and how would that change my opportunity?” Huang said. “And, you know, what does it free me to be able to do and so on, so forth?”
To fully grasp the scope of the AI frontier, people just need to see it for themselves and how the technology has “lowered a barrier of knowledge,” Huang said.
“If I put a computer in front of somebody and they’ve never used a computer, there is no chance they’re going to learn that computer in a day,” he added.
“And yet with ChatGPT, if you don’t know how to use it, all you have to do is type in, ‘I don’t know how to use ChatGPT; tell me,’ and it would come back and give you some examples,” he said. “The amazing thing about intelligence is it’ll help you along the way and make you superhuman along the way.”
