Jensen Huang to college grads: "Run. Don't walk" toward AI

https://www.axios.com/2026/05/...

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang told graduates at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh yesterday that demand for AI infrastructure is creating a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to reindustrialize America and restore the nation's capacity to build."

Why it matters: With many college grads fearing AI could obliterate their career dreams, Huang pointed to boundless opportunity as a "new industry is being born. A new era of science and discovery is beginning ... I cannot imagine a more exciting time to begin your life's work."

Nvidia, which makes AI chips, is the world's most valuable company. Huang told 5,800 recipients of undergraduate and graduate degrees that the AI buildout will require plumbers, electricians, ironworkers, and builders for chip factories, data centers and advanced manufacturing facilities.

"No generation has entered the world with more powerful tools â" or greater opportunities â" than you," he said. "We are all standing at the same starting line. This is your moment to help shape what comes next. So run. Don't walk."

"Every major technological revolution in history created fear alongside opportunity," Huang added. "When society engages technology openly, responsibly, and optimistically, we expand human potential far more than we diminish it."

Full speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Honestly outside of people who do heavy 3d rendering, even a computer you use for your job just doesn't need to be that powerful.

As a programmer who sits at a screen for 8 hours a day, it took a lot of convincing for me to even give up my 10 year old workstation because it was pretty decent when it was purchased and as long as it had decent ram (it had 32GB) I was perfectly fine working on it. Having to reinstall was more of a headache that the benefit of getting a new system.

Hell my home/play machine is SIGNIFICANTLY more powerful than my work one.

I view my home computer like a Corvette and my work machine like a Corolla. At home I want fast - at work I just want dependable.

Given the Apple/Mac history with NeXT, I think the name he chose is more fitting.

When I got my first computer it was a Commodore, and I had a ton of those magazines. Eventually my disk drive broke, so if I wanted to play one of those little games or things they had, I literally had to type the whole program in each time.

I would leave the computer powered on as long as possible so that the RAM didn't clear :).

Modern pipes are often plastic, but a lot of technology is different in modern times as well. Lots of stuff done with mechanical relays and such are done with solid state stuff now.

Heck CRT screens even when "black" you could still tell when they were on - not because of some light, but because they had an almost imperceptible "hum" you could hear and they air around them felt more charged with static electricity.

Tech from different eras just sometimes feels and sound different.

...like "Tell me about Tiananmen Square" or "Tell me about Xinjiang".

Is this what you want for the future?

My thoughts back when R1 came out:

https://www.afcea.org/signal-m...

Even though I've pretty consistently used Samsung phones for like 15 years now, I always switched the default messaging app to Google's. Phone companies don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Its a pitch about "what if" - not something they've figured out how to do.

Such press releases basically ARE just science fiction that they're hoping to get an investor for to MAYBE turn into fact (or not - they'll be rich when/if it fails anyways).

Realistically, the home experience has just gotten too good these days to bother going to the theater. I'm 44 - when I was a kid a 25" TV screen was huge. When I was in college I took some extra financial aid refund money and bought a 32" CRT television for our room and everyone felt like that TV was comically large. Our dorm room was the place everyone came to watch TV because we had "the big TV".

Now 32" is tiny, and adjusted for inflation I can get an 85" TV for almost half of what I paid for that TV. For $150-200 you can add in a soundbar with a decent subwoofer and have damned good home audio. The TV's are also laid out in a better aspect ratio compared to film so letterboxing isn't as extreme, and the resolution is through the roof compared to old NTSC.

Realistically while at home viewing used to be a pale imitation of the quality you got at a theater, these days the home experience is on par, and you don't have to worry about other people talking or ruining the movie. A bag of popcorn at home is $0.45.

Its just a better experience at home.

I think we really need some type of granular filter.

An AI thumbnail or a few seconds of AI generated content I don't care about in a video, as long as the video is MOSTLY a real manual production.

The videos where the animations, voiceover, and even the script is all clearly AI though, those are the ones where I want to skip it entirely.

Like if this video is more than 30% AI, then I would prefer it be culled from my feed.

It is crazy just HOW wrong and weird these "hallucinations" can be. Just last night I was asking Gemini about TV shows to watch and it literally made up a TV show that didn't exist as a recommendation.

Ironically - they'd likely end up picking the worst artists in the country, as artists with skills who are more valuable are less in need of the program in the first place.

I get that the lack of a social safety net can be an issue. It leads people to either take or stay in jobs that they hate where conditions may be bad or unfair, because if you become unemployed most people aren't too many paychecks away from homelessness.

Still, I'd rather see something akin to an unemployement option where everyone gets up to 5 years of UBI throughout their lives. You can never touch it if you don't need it or you can take it for a few months in between jobs if need be, so long as you don't exceed your allocated amount. You can't stay on it indefinitely - you have to work - but a brief lapse in employment isn't likely to completely destroy your life.

Indeed. However that is what determines if you are successful or not. If you are an artist producing output that people WILL pay for - then that's a "real job". If you're an artist producing output that nobody is willing to pay for - then you're just wasting time.

Focusing activity where it is needed is part of the job market. If you go into your back yard with a shovel and just start digging a deep hole people will rightly think you're wasting time. If you instead take the same shovel and effort and dig where someone else specifically needs a whole dug, then you're producing valuable output.

On a societal structure, virtually all output is valued by what its worth to others. Since we are incapable of surviving alone in modern times (very few people are subsistence farmers or hunter/gatherers), you have to have some type of valuable skill that you are willing to trade to others for some portion of what you need to survive.

On the contrary, they absolutely do. Policing is a job with output. Criminals are caught, rules are enforced. This is output that can be measured. Output isn't directly died to producing manufactured goods. Output can be a service that people are willing to pay to have done.

In much the same vein, cleaning staff and maids aren't manufacturing anything, but they still produce output that people will pay for.

I am assuming Kosh (though they are ALL Kosh ;)). Sheridan confronts Kosh to intervene against the Shadows and at first Kosh refuses until Sheridan eventually goads him into helping.

As Kosh is being killed by the Shadows in retaliation, he comes to John in a dream (appearing as John's father) and explains that he was reluctant largely because he was afraid. He knew that helping John in that instance was effectively a death sentence - and he wouldn't be around to help John later when he'd need it. EG "I will not be with you, when you go to Zha'hadum").