Nvidia CEO Dismisses Concerns That AI Is Making People Dumber

Summary

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in an interview with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein that people’s declining ability to perform basic mathematics may not matter as AI becomes more widespread. He cited long division, multiplication tables and square roots as skills that are increasingly being forgotten, and argued that society will discover new skills to replace some of them. The article cites a study of 1,000 high school mathematics students in which those using ChatGPT performed 48% better on practice problems, but performed 17% worse than students without AI access when the tools were removed. It presents this as evidence that short-term assistance can coexist with weaker unaided performance, while also warning that dependence could make AI mistakes harder to detect and leave people less capable of working independently. Huang has previously described concerns about AI as a “doomer narrative.” The article argues that Nvidia has a financial incentive to see AI become indispensable: the company reported $193.7 billion in fiscal 2026 data-center revenue, compared with $16 billion from gaming, and now presents itself primarily as an AI infrastructure company. Its explanation of Huang’s position is therefore explicitly tied to Nvidia’s business interests, while the broader claims about long-term effects are presented as the article’s argument rather than established findings.