Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pushed back on predictions that AI will wipe out human jobs, pointing to a famous – and, so far, incorrect – forecast about radiologists.
Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, Huang cited a 2016 comment from Geoffrey Hinton, the former Google vice president often called the “Godfather of AI,” who said people should stop training as radiologists because AI would outperform them at image recognition within five years.
Huang noted that the opposite has happened: the number of radiologists has actually increased since then. He added that
“today, just about every radiologist is using AI in some way, rather than being replaced by it.”
To really understand AI’s impact on work, Huang argued, you have to look at the purpose of the job itself. For radiologists, he said, the real mission is diagnosing disease, not merely examining images – image reading is just one step toward that broader goal.
As AI systems speed up and sharpen image analysis, Huang said radiologists can handle more scans and deliver more diagnoses. That greater capacity, in turn, brings more patients into hospitals and clinics.
“When they have better economics, they hire more radiologists,”
Huang said, suggesting AI can expand demand for skilled professionals instead of eliminating them.
Read Our Special Article How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Cancer Care in 2025