Nvidia CEO: It doesn’t matter what children will learn in the age of AI

“I think it won’t change. All the things that were important in the past will remain the things that will be important in the future.” Huang added that instead of looking for professions that are “immune to AI”, students should focus on using artificial intelligence to deepen their learning and improve their skill.

The CEO of Nvidia cited areas such as journalism, storytelling, art and design as examples of those that will remain valuable even as artificial intelligence becomes even more dominant.

Huang talked about the qualities that children will need to succeed in the age of AI, and the skills that parents should help their children develop – such as curiosity and adaptability, communication and relationship building – and argued that artificial intelligence will eventually push people into higher-level work that requires judgment and creativity. “Work is like a basket of tasks,” he said. “Many of these tasks will become automated. And my feeling is that as a result of the automation, we will be able to focus on the more difficult parts of our work.”

Passion, talent, social utility and human interaction

Senior executives in artificial intelligence industry and research expressed similar opinions aswho were asked what they would advise their children to study, as published in the “Wall Street Journal” in February. Their answers show that investing in the basic sciences, such as mathematics, is essential for the development of the logical thinking required to understand the systems of–AI, but the real insurance policy against the rapid changes lies precisely in the studies of the humanities. These studies provide metacognitive skills of flexibility, adaptation and critical thinking, which become critical since communication with the computer is based on natural language, context and expression of intent. Beyond these skills, what they believe will ensure a meaningful and stable career are occupations that combine personal passion and talent with social benefit, with an emphasis on human interaction. So are professions based on compassion, care and interpersonal connection such as helping the weak in society, medicine and protecting the environment – fields where technology will never be able to replace humans.

Some technology leaders, Elon Musk for example, predict that artificial intelligence will make human work redundant in the future. Musk was quoted in Fortune magazine in January as saying that work will be “as optional as growing vegetables in the home garden.” Huang, in contrast, dismissed in the interview concerns that widespread use of AI could make people less intelligent or lazier.

He compared the rise of AI to the rise of personal computers, the Internet, and smartphones, arguing that previous waves of technology enhanced human ambition, not diminished it. “Have we gotten busier or less? I think the answer is we’ve gotten busier,” Huang said.