Jensen Huang believes that questions whether artificial intelligence could destroy humanity are in the best way of progress. The founding father of Nvidiawhich enables the pc chips to do, reminiscent of The journalist wondered if he was “An Ai Robert Oppenheimer”. He doesn't construct bombs, he replied.
For the journalist Stephen Witt, nonetheless, he was a motive for writing, which he calls “fear” (divided by the three most cited computer scientists) The memoryhis story of Nvidia. His book, which serves as a biography of his founder, asks: What does artificial intelligence Nvidia mean for the long run of humanity?
Nvidia is currently one in all the world Most estimated firms. At over 5 trillion US dollars it’s Evaluation is near one in all his biggest customers – Microsoft.
Nvidia was founded to provide video game graphics and led Pioneer of “parallel processing”: a couple of thing after the opposite. It developed an electronic circuit board that may quickly perform many mathematical calculations which are “known as” “Graphics processing unit”(GPU). Then Nvidia looked for other users who needed numerous computing power.
When its equipment was applied to “neural networks” or computer systems that imitate the brain – a key technology in AI – the gold mine hit.
Huang believes that AI is a force for progress and has a brand new industrial revolution, writes Witt. Huang enthused: “The border costs for the calculation went to zero, and this has opened incredible possibilities”. He rejects concerns and says of AI: “Everything it does is the processing of information”.
Successful story
Jensen (originally Jen-Hsun) Huang was born in Taiwan. The history of his family is a classic example of successful immigrants. His father was a chemical engineer and his mother was a important teacher. They were hard -working parents who brought victims to present their children a successful life. They sent Jensen and his brother to stick with an uncle within the United States at ten years and joined two years later, writes Witt.
Jensen was excellent each academically and at table tennis. He studied electrical engineering at Oregon State University, where he met his wife Lori. Both got jobs in Silicon Valley.
Witt compares Huang with Samuel BrannanThe first millionaire became the mid -Nineteenth century in California by selling devices that benefited through the gold rush as a substitute of being a miner himself.
Nvidia boomed across the turn of the century when Huang became a billionaire for the primary time. The share price crashed after the bubble of dot.com was planned, but the corporate fought back. Huang was again a billionaire until 2016. He is now regarded as price Over 100 billion US dollars. The 30,000 NVIDIA employees achieve a median of over 1 million US dollars a 12 months.
Nvidia contributed to work, the Nobel Prices won in each physics And Chemistry In 2017, scientists used the corporate's GPUS to research large amounts of information generated by laser rays, recognize the gravitational waves, and the detailed structure of individual cell organisms. This helped them to learn more about phenomena on a really large and really small scale.
But when his GPUS was used to dismantling bitcoins, “many were horrified in Nvidia”. Witt reports that most of the Nvidia engineers, to which he spoke “Crytpo”, considered an idiotic distraction from the way more necessary work of the corporate “and anxious in regards to the contribution of the energy-intensive crypto mining to climate change.
A CEO longer than Bill Gates
Huang has only been known recently. However, this overnight stay has spent 32 years as CEO – Microsoft led longer than Bill Gates.
He works over 12 hours a day, six days every week. Maybe none of his children initially wanted a profession in technology, writes Witt. His daughter desired to be a photographer. But each landed at Nvidia: the daughter is a marketing director and the son is within the robotics group.
Huang described Witt as a “serious one that does a serious job”. Huang might be a demanding boss and shout the staff in front of her colleagues if she disillusioned her performance. But he would try to lift their performance; To be released was just one last resort. He might be very generous for workers who’ve medical problems.
While Witt Nvidia's headquarters “calls”Panopticon“Most of his employees appear to prefer it – and Huang estimates that Nvidia says in his annual report:” Our employees are likely to come and stay “. Of course, the work at Nvidia has done a lot of them” insane, incredibly wealthy “.
Witt seems to admire Huang. He describes him as “charming, funny, self -ironic” and as a “family man” who keeps his political beliefs to himself. In contrast to a few of his colleagues, he doesn’t appear to assume that he’s the neatest person in a room and expert in every area to be wealthy and to be a talented engineer. He was not a part of the Greek choir of Plutocrats within the Trump Office.
He appears to be so grounded as a centilionaire.
Think like an engineer
Huang hadn't read Witt's New York profileThe basis for this book helped him make contacts to write down it. Witt feels Huang “doesn't think like a businessman, he thinks like an engineer”.
In order to attract a superhero analogy, it seems to me that Huang is more of the talented, workaholic genius Reed Richards the incredible 4 than the volatile, arrogants Tony Stark From Iron Man (who’s often compared To Elon Muschus).
Witt suggests that Huang Steve Jobs from “Visionary Tech Executive with a Signature Outfit (…) took on a vital ceremonial role in American culture. Huang developed around 2015: a black leather jacket with black pants and shoes.
What he has not developed is a succession plan. None of the 55 employees who tell him on to him is a proven deputy, writes Witt.
Important questions on KI
Witt sees the event of AI as fulfilling The vision of 1964 of the science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. Huang could be less of a later work by Clarke, which might write down Stanley Kubrick's script 2001: A Space OdysseyA sensitive computer that kills people.
The considering machine comprises an interesting debate in regards to the dangers of AI. At the top of the book, Witt still seems to have “fear” despite Huang's assurance.
I’m inclined to comply with Huang that AI is unlikely to delete humanity. But more must be taken into consideration than Huang seems to think.
This is just not the one risk of users of the NVIDIA GPUS for AI. You use numerous electricity. Witt notes that a student who makes chatt uses to write down an essay uses as much strength because the execution of a microwave for an hour. A Google search with AI consumes ten times the electricity of a normal search.
On the opposite hand, the NVIDIA employees also used their chips to perform complex climate models that can assist to develop guidelines for dismantling and setting to global heaters, writes Witt.
Like Kara Swisher's Burn book, it is a book in regards to the Tech world, which a non-tech audience may find very interesting.
