I remember when Jensen Huang used to sell me GPUs, now he's out there having to deny that AI will cause 'the end of the world'

The hardware landscape of 2021 feels like a distant world. Case in point this past week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that talk of an AI-induced extinction event for humanity is overblown and "not grounded in science." Huang's comments were in part responding to claims made earlier this month by ex-Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, saying that AI progress 'could kill us all by the end of the decade'.

"2030 is not going to be the end of the world. There is 0% chance that's going to be the end of the world," Huang told CBS News on Friday. "Scaring people is unnecessary. It is irresponsible."

Compare and contrast this state of affairs to five years ago, when the keynote for GTC 2021 came to you predominantly from Huang's own kitchen, and the month before Nvidia spent a decent chunk of change on a tiny leather jacket emoji to poke fun at its CEO. Ah, simpler times; the leather jackets persist, but now Huang is fielding calls on-stage from the US president, offering assurances to Trump that he "saw through" all of the AI doomsaying.

As I've said before, I barely remember the last time Nvidia mentioned gaming at all in an earnings call, with the company being all-in on AI for some time now. As such, Huang told CBS News last week, "Our company's success is directly connected to the safe deployment of [AI] products and services. If we don't continue to do that, our value would be diminished."

Still, it's a strange state of affairs when the guy who used to primarily sell us PC gamers GPUs is having to offer assurances that the world isn't ending. That's all without saying anything about the CEO rocking up to the White House in a leather jacket and joining the US president on his expedition to convince China to 'open up'.

Mind you, the more things change, the more they stay the same, as one of our Dave's big questions for Nvidia back in 2021 was 'Can Nvidia actually build enough GPUs to please gamers?' Obviously, the reasons for GPU scarcity are different now, but it remains a mission to track down a 50-series GPU at MSRP.