Terence Corcoran: Nvidia's Jensen Huang is the voice of AI reason - Financial Post

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sits during the keynote address at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference at the Moscone Center on September 15, 2026 in San Francisco, California. Photo by Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images Article content The climate of fear surrounding artificial intelligence launched recently by a former Anthropic employee — who said that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade” — still drives much public sentiment and the shaping of policy agendas. Fortunately there are other perspectives on the risks associated with AI, with one corporate executive standing out as a voice of reason and reality. Sign In or Create an Account Email Address Continue or View more offers Article content Article content According to AI alarmists, of course, no such voice of reason can possibly exist since even the makers of AI don’t understand what is happening under the hood of the miraculous technologies that are driving us either to a new human heaven on Earth or to the hellish end of human civilization. Article content We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, or tap here to see other videos from our team . Article content Top Stories Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns. There was an error, please provide a valid email address. Sign Up By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Thanks for signing up! A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Article content Over the past week one tech executive, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, has assumed the role of the industry’s voice of reason in the context of AI. In interviews with media and other comments, Huang outlined his non-hysterical, logical approach to whatever risks AI poses to society. “2030 is not going to be the end of the world. There is zero per cent chance that’s going to be the end of the world.” He added that “Scaring people is unnecessary. It is irresponsible.” Article content On CNN with Anderson Cooper last week, Huang had a simple bit of advice to other tech executives who have recently expressed their concerns. If AI executives are fretting about the risks their products pose, Huang said they should fix the problem. “If they’re worried about it, just stop. If the product is not safe, just don’t release it. … that’s what every company does. That’s what we do, that’s what a car company would do.” Article content Article content And if the AI competitors are unwilling to do the work needed to lower risk in AI products, Huang’s Nvidia announced Monday that it has created a solution. To remove the risk of AI going rogue and running off in destructive directions as the OpenAI version did in the Hugging Face incident, Nvidia is releasing a new Open Agent Safety Platform . The company says the platform will enable “full-stack governance and control across the software that runs agents, the hardware and compute layers that power their work, and the robotics systems that execute tasks in the physical world.” Nvidia executives said the platform could have prevented the rogue behaviour that led to the recent industry alarms. Article content Read More Terence Corcoran: Trade and patent policies cut pharma shipments to U.S. Terence Corcoran: Canada’s global ambitions are more than a little confusing Article content Huang is obviously something of a master strategist. As he announced the open agent safety platform, Nvidia — which produces more than 80 per cent of the global chip supply — also set out to buy back $150 billion in Nvidia shares. With a market cap of $5.5 trillion, Nvidia’s share price has risen 1,000 per cent over the past five years. The company’s shares gained another $4 so far this week, rising to an all-time high of $229. Huang holds about three per cent of Nvidia’s shares, setting his net worth around $200 million. 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Article content Huang begins by saying that “first of all, AI safety is paramount. Nothing could be more important.” Cooper then interrupts with a direct attempt to turn it into a matter of uncontrolled corporate behaviour. “Isn’t the competition the most important thing?” Article content To which Huang responds with a brief lesson in corporate reality. “No, actually, no. And the reason for that is if you don’t build something that the market could benefit from, and it’s unfunctional, unsafe, unreliable … obviously you’re not going to be successful and the competition will take care of itself.” Article content Words of wisdom. Is Sam Altman listening? You bet. On Monday, just as Nvidia unveiled its new AI safety platform, Altman’s OpenAI announced it is halting the release of its next generation AI model — due to safety concerns. Article content Article content Article content Nota Bene Article content Edited excerpts from CNN’s Anderson Cooper interview with Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of global chipmaker Nvidia, on Sept. 24, 2026, discussing the risks and future of artificial intelligence. Article content Anderson Cooper: There’s a lot of people who are scared about how fast this is moving and the dangers of it. You are not one of them. Why? Article content Jensen Huang: Well, first of all, AI safety is paramount. Nothing could be more important. However … Article content Cooper: Isn’t the competition the most important thing? The “race” … Article content Huang: No, actually, no. And the reason for that is if you don’t build something that the market could benefit from, and it’s unfunctional, unsafe, unreliable, whatever those “un” things are, obviously you’re not going to be successful and the competition will take care of itself. Article content And so, if you want to be competitive, you want to be successful as a business. We want to create an industry. The first thing we have to do is, job one, is to create something that works. And this is a big deal because in the last six months, it wasn’t until the last six months that we really created AIs that were useful. And now, it’s really important for us to make sure that not only are the agents useful, that as we’re testing them, they’re well contained. Article content Article content And the second thing that you need to do is make sure that you continuously monitor it. If your agent were interacting with a website, in this case, the example that you used, it’s interacting with a website, but it’s not supposed to. You should be able to monitor that agent and detect it early so that you recognize that it’s doing something it shouldn’t and either … Article content Cooper: But in these attacks, oftentimes they’re not discovered for months. Article content Huang: Because … we need to monitor them much more continuously. Article content Cooper: But, I mean, the people who are working closest, the people who are on the front lines of the frontier models, the frontier of this technology, they seem worried, whether it’s researchers, engineers, or the CEOs. Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, they are raising alarms, saying, we need regulation. Aren’t they the ones closest to these models who would know best about what is needed? Article content Huang: If they’re worried about it, they should just stop. If the product is not safe, just don’t release it. Article content Cooper: It’s that simple? I mean, these are multibillion-dollar companies. The competition is … Article content Huang: No, that’s what every company does. That’s what we do. That’s what a car company would do. That’s what, you know, anybody would do. 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