Nvidia CEO slams Anthropic's chief over his claims of AI taking half of jobs and being unsafe — Jensen says ‘Don’t do it in a dark room and tell me it’s safe’

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang criticized Anthropic head Dario Amodei over his recent claims that 50% of all entry-level white-collar jobs could be wiped out by artificial intelligence, causing unemployment to jump to 20% within the next five years. Huang disagreed with Amodei’s predictions when he was asked about it during VivaTech in Paris, where he said that he “pretty much disagree[s] with almost everything” the Anthropic CEO said, according to Fortune.

“One, he believes that AI is so scary that only they [Anthropic] should do it. Two, that AI is so expensive, nobody else should do it… and three, AI is so incredibly powerful that everyone will lose their jobs, which explains why they should be the only company building it,” said Huang. “I think AI is a very important technology; we should build it and advance it safely and responsibly. If you want things to be done safely and responsibly, you do it in the open… Don’t do it in a dark room and tell me it’s safe.”

Dario Amodei founded Anthropic with several former OpenAI employees in 2021 after they left the latter over its direction and safety concerns. The former still works on developing AI, but it’s focused on taking a safer, more ethical approach, helping ensure that humanity does not create a tool that will pose a risk to its existence. Its latest AI model, Claude 4 Opus, was shown to have the capability to write code that approaches the capabilities of humans, as well as scheme, deceive, and manipulate its users, even getting to the point of creating false email threads to blackmail engineers who were attempting to shut it down.

Anthropic responded to Huang’s claims, telling Fortune that, “Dario has never claimed that ‘only Anthropic’ can build safe and powerful AI. As the public record will show, Dario has advocated for a national transparency standard for AI developers (including Anthropic) so the public and policymakers are aware of the models’ capabilities and risks and prepare accordingly. He has also raised concerns about the economic impact of AI — particularly on entry-level jobs. Dario stands by these positions and will continue to do so.”

This disagreement shows the two CEOs' different approaches towards artificial intelligence. Amodei is more cautious, and he thinks about the risk that AI poses to the average worker. Furthermore, he’s pushing lawmakers to do something about this disruption to make the transition much smoother for society.

On the other hand, while Huang agrees that some jobs will be made obsolete and that almost every career will be changed, he also says that there will be more openings and opportunities for people. He believes that as companies become more productive through AI, they will also need to hire more personnel to expand their operations.

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