Nvidia boss says AI 'doesn't need new laws' as safety concerns grow

Nvidia chief says AI 'doesn't need new laws' as safety worries mount

Nvidia's Jensen Huang has been one of the leading figures in the recent AI surge.

The heads of artificial intelligence (AI) companies should decide whether new versions of the technology ought to be launched, Nvidia chief Jensen Huang said in response to rising concerns about AI's danger to humans.

"We don't need new laws or regulations," Huang said, adding that there should not be a "false choice" between the pace of innovation and the safety of AI products.

Nvidia is the world's most valuable company, and its profits have surged because of huge demand for the AI computing chips it produces.

Huang's view on AI safety differs from others in the industry who have recently voiced fears that the technology could destroy humanity.

A post by an artificial intelligence researcher who left AI company Anthropic went viral last week after it said AI could kill all humans by the end of the decade if left unchecked.

Other AI executives and experts replied that they agreed.

Then, over the weekend, Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei called for all AI development to slow down, external and urged governments to regulate the sector.

The post was praised by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, co-founder of Google's DeepMind Demis Hassabis, and Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X and AI assistant Grok.

However, some industry figures have said the fears were exaggerated and were being used to create hype for the industry.

Speaking about the possible dangers of AI at a Salesforce conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Huang described current progress as "a new industrial revolution" but said AI companies should be allowed to largely regulate themselves.

"Safety is paramount. However, safety is an engineering problem," Huang said.

He added that if at any point a leader of an AI company does not have confidence in their product, they should decide not to release it.

"That's a very obvious thing to do," Huang said. "Run as fast as you can, but if at any time you feel the institution is not in control, take a pause."

The notion of leaving AI executives to regulate themselves entirely has been seen by some in the industry as a poor idea.

Jack Clark, an Anthropic executive and co-founder, told the BBC on Monday that allowing AI to be a "totally unregulated industry" was "rolling dice with immense risks".

Patrick Hillman, chief business officer of Logical Intelligence, which is chaired by Yann LeCun, a sage of the AI industry, said on Tuesday that people have very little trust in tech companies to do anything truly in the public interest, external.

"The only institution that Americans might trust less than Washington these days is Silicon Valley. I have worked and lived in both and I assure you both have earned this scepticism," Hillman said.

"If you believe what you are building is dangerous, show us what you are prepared to stop doing," he added.

Leaders of OpenAI and Anthropic have said they have recently begun working toward some kind of industry-wide safety agreement.

Amodei, speaking briefly at the conference on Tuesday, said Anthropic is now in "a dialogue with the rest of the industry" about committing to stronger safety standards and checks on AI tools and development.

He also said one of the biggest surprises of the AI boom was not how much the technology itself has advanced, but its wider effect.

"We didn't appreciate that it would lead to companies growing so fast, and how quickly they would become central to things," Amodei said.

OpenAI executive Chris Lehane said last week that the company was also working with other AI labs, external "to advance frontier AI standards, building a voluntary effort now, with or without government support." Those labs include Anthropic and Google Deepmind.

"With stakes this high, we cannot let the perfect become the enemy of the good," Lehane wrote.