Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang says electricians and plumbers will be needed by the hundreds of thousands in the new working world

https://fortune.com/article/nvidia-billionaire-ceo-jensen-huang-demand-for-gen-z-skilled-trade-workers-electricans-plumbers-carpenters-data-center-growth-six-figure-salaries/

211 points · 107 comments · view on lemmy.world

107 Comments

toebert@piefed.social · 139 pts · 57d (5 replies)

Not to agree with him but.. They already are and have been for a while?

sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 66 pts · 56d (4 replies)

He is desperately rhetorically flailing, trying to pitch the idea that temporary demand in construction of data centers = job creation.

Despite that the entire point of an AI data center is to automate away 100x to 100,000x as many jobs, permanently, as will actually exist for maybe 18 months, to build the thing.

Its a nakedly bad faith line of bullshit, literally insultingly stupid to anyone that's taken a year of macro econ.

Even if you build the datacenters, ... the amount of power needed for them would be roughly equivalent to building the entire electrical power infrastructure of Germany, and that would need to be done in 18 months.

Conpletely impossible, that's like 10 years of the world's current production rate of power transformers, in 18 months.

These guys would need a top down command economy and 5 year plans to do this, and they do not have that, so they're basically just pretending they do. When it becomes evident that they were bullshitting, they'll try to say 'well thats how things should have been the whole time, with me in charge of everything!'

Delusional.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 56d (1 reply)

plus the trades will be saturated in the schools if they tried this and would depress wages.

sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 55d

I mean yeah, it would/could just be the inverse of what millenials/zoomers grew up with: 'you have to go to college learn a skilled trade if you want to have a decent living!'

Hard to forecast precisely how strong the effect would be, but absolutely yeah, if a bunch of people flood into a specific category of labor... they will on aggregate depress their own wages.

... This is why the luddites smashed things.

Partially because the machines actually produced inferior output products, mostly because their proliferation caused mass unemployment/immiseration.

A society that wants to technologically progress must also socially progress, otherwise, you're just building a tinder box.

riskable@programming.dev · 1 pts · 56d (1 reply)

While I sort of agree with you that that is his angle, service jobs that aren't easily automatable will continue to climb in the "job stability and pay rate" category until the world figures out how to deal with Baumol's Cost Disease:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 56d

What do you mean 'deal with Baulmol's cost disease'?

You mean general, broad inflation, right?

You're worried that non-automatable low wages jobs will continue to be non-automatable low wage jobs, but slightly less low wage?

You're worried that jobs tend to need to be done by people who can afford to be alive?

ISOmorph@feddit.org · 69 pts · 57d (1 reply)

By his logic we wouldn't need CEOs either, so silver lining?

rf_@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 56d

Yeah but they make the rules

rozodru@piefed.world · 58 pts · 56d (9 replies)

yeah no. one of the reasons plumbers or electricians generally do well is because their field isn't saturated with plumbers and electricians. hundreds of thousands of each means salaries of said jobs will go down. thus nothing changes. Add to the fact both jobs A. require trade schooling and B. apprenticeships. Also they're pretty much all unionized which you also have to get into. it would never fly, it could never fly unless you do away with trade schools, apprenticeships, and unions which leaves you with unqualified under paid plumbers and electricians.

This fucking leather jacket wearing mouth breather needs a strong reality check. preferably one that adds another hole to his head.

foo@feddit.uk · 8 pts · 56d (7 replies)

I wonder how long it will take for shareholders to experiment with replacing CEOs with agentic AIs. They'd certainly be good at spouting crap like Jensen is doing.

boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 56d

Point of a CEO is that there's one public person for everyone to hate that can be given an even more hated golden parachute if shit goes down. You can't do this with AI. Replacing AI with AI doesn't have the same effect on people even if it has the same effect in reality

Flower@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 56d (5 replies)

You don't want to replace them as that has legal issues. But an AI being backseat driver and evaluating their decisions and check what the consequences would be to report that to investors is also very useful.

shrugs@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 56d (4 replies)

Don't antropomorphize AI!

An AI doesn't evaluate anything, an AI doesn't check for consequences. All AI does is predicting the next word.

Do I take the car to the carwash or do i walk?

If it's only 300m away, you should walk

Sure, now predict the future please *facepalm*

boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 56d (3 replies)

The carwash thing applies to low end models and older models. Here's Claude from lowest to highest model, ignoring the banned Fable

replicat@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 56d (2 replies)

They altered the training data to address this challenge. The underlying issue wasn't solved in any way. Don't be naive.

boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 56d (1 reply)

Takes months to train a model, there were already models that got it right when the question was popular, as long as thinking was enabled.

Also if they were optimising for this question, why not update their lower end model (Haiku) as well?

The interesting question would be what percent of humans get it wrong. Smaller than LLMs for sure, but I somehow doubt it's 0.

mabeledo@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 56d
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LuminousLuddite@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 56d
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gwulgg@lemmy.zip · 48 pts · 56d

It annoys me to no end every single dumbass statement these idiot CEOs make is treated like news

Buffalox@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 56d (1 reply)

Oh my god, Jensen Huang is losing it completely now, the billions have gone to his head, so he thinks he's an oracle.
He might as well say we all need to become janitors, that follow each robot around to wipe it's ass clean of oil.

foo@feddit.uk · 9 pts · 56d

And, why is it always folk like him telling everyone else what they should be doing? They act like they're the ones running the show and we all need to do what we're told. If AI takes his job, will he be retraining as a plumber?

aesthelete@lemmy.world · 32 pts · 56d (1 reply)

CEO says a thing journalism!

0x0@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 55d

Next up: pop artists opinion on climate issues and global politics

whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 30 pts · 56d

CEOs quoted: 3

Labor leaders quoted: 0

PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca · 29 pts · 56d (3 replies)

When I was 16-22ish, I knew everything. I was sure of it. I had it all figured out. Everyone was an idiot except me. I tried giving everyone advice because I had the best advice.

Then reality kicked me in the ass and brought me down a couple pegs and I realized that I was so incredibly wrong. I'm just a guy with limited knowledge and the world and universe is so vast and different that no one can "know it all" or even come remotely close.

I'm so thankful for that. Otherwise I'd be a fucking moron with a dumb leather jacket waxing poetic about skilled trades as I pretend that next word guessing chatbots are the pinnacle of humanity's creation.

Hadriscus@jlai.lu · 6 pts · 56d (2 replies)

The thing is, if the future is all datacenters, yes we're gonna need electricians and plumbers. But this is a future I want to help prevent at all costs. So look at me purposefully not being an electrician or plumber

discocactus@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 56d (1 reply)

Wouldn't you be able to prevent it better by just being a bad plumber?

Hadriscus@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 56d

A militant serial plumber sabotaging data centers throughout the world.... I'd watch that

IratePirate@feddit.org · 29 pts · 56d (4 replies)

Let me guess: the milllions of electricians are tasked with building the AI data centres, while the plumbers build the plumbing needed to flush all those tons of generated slop down the drain?

roofuskit@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 56d (3 replies)

No, plumbers needed to help divert the worlds drinking water to cool servers.

chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 56d

Yep. And then everyone dies from the water shortages and the world population consists of a handful of billionaires surrounded by a vast dystopian landscape of data centres running AI for them… to do what, exactly? No one knows. But they want it!

CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 56d

Weird, because you could convert the cooling to distillation and make drinking water. But, as is tradition, suffering is the point.

Flower@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 56d

Of they're willing to pay for radiators for cooling with datacenters in space, they can just as well pay for radiators on Earth. They work better with air and not water needed al all.

Zacpod@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 56d (5 replies)

Jensen can go fuck himself. Gamers built nvidia and he fucks them over at the first opportunity.

Archer@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 56d (3 replies)

Can’t wait for the “pivot” back to gaming when AI crashes

DeadDigger@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 56d

As a gamer they already lost me years ago but I urge everyone else to let them fail as a general business memorial

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 55d

China is filling that gap, fast.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 56d

i doubt it will, since he already bought years worth of AI chips, it would take him an extremely long time to pivot back, by then he would probably lose alot of value to nvidia,

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 55d

He handed China one of the largest industries born from the US. When AI pops, there will be nothing for Nvidia to go back to.

BassTurd@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 56d (3 replies)

I have a relative that's an electrician working on a DC. He's been one it for a year and has about two years left to completion. All of the electricians that are willing and able are working weekends on overtime pay to get this done, it's all voluntary shifts.

He was talking numbers the other day, and their company gets to keep the difference is cost on the project if they come in under budget, and they're on track to make over 1 million on top of what they quoted. None of that is being dispersed amongst the workers, at least for now. He said they recently did their weekly dialogue where everyone gets together in a room to talk about the project, and said it was abnormally quiet. People are upset and burning out. He said they could pay everyone an extra $20k a year out of that excess, and that may turn the motivation around, but so far nothing.

My point on that is, yea, they do need as many electricians as they can get, but thanks to capitalism, it ain't going to happen and they're going to start losing workers. That aligns with Jensen here, because like everyone other douchebag with power, he wouldn't be saying this if the futures didn't looked bleak on the work force. I also don't know if $20k a year extra will be enough to offset 60 hour weeks specifically working on DCs.

crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 56d (2 replies)

That situation sounds an awful lot like when Uber and Lyft first started enshittifying during COVID.

BassTurd@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 56d

We can take that further. It's the core tenant of capitalism, so definitely ride share, but also most other companies. Most other companies aren't as popular as Uber and Lyft though.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 56d

they enshitified long before covid.

RoddyStiggs@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 22 pts · 55d (3 replies)

Who keeps fucking quoting this idiot and posting it?

sanitation@lemmy.today · -8 pts · 55d (2 replies)

I'm just reddit reposting. Can't take that credit

RoddyStiggs@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 55d

You chose to repost it.

Leave the slop on the slop website. We don't want it.

cows_are_underrated@feddit.org · 6 pts · 55d

Well, you postet it.

Taleya@aussie.zone · 20 pts · 56d (9 replies)

Does this idiot know what trades make? He's trying to denigrate blue collar, but sparkies and plumbers make miiiint

Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 56d (5 replies)

Not once some damn startup funded by people like this idiot start an app and through shady practices drive out all the independent tradesmen and make it a gig job.

Taleya@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 56d (4 replies)

they try, but all it means is that the shit workers end up blowing up houses and the good workers make some extra pocket money for christmas before fucking off back to their real employers.

Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 56d (3 replies)

Nah, that ain't trying. When they actually try it'll involve billions and billions of dollars in startup funding so that the companies can lose money for a good decade long enough to actually drive everyone else out of business. That there is amateur hour.

Taleya@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 56d (2 replies)

Might happen in the US. Won't happen in any country where unions are functional.

Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 56d (1 reply)

Ain't nobody safe from the horrors of capitalism. Ever. It can always be ripped away. If your instance is any indication you should know that better than any.

Taleya@aussie.zone · 0 pts · 55d

no shit dude. But a key part of that process is destroying unions, hence my proviso any country where unions are functional.

elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 56d (2 replies)

Yeah, very rarely do tradespeople get rich, but most I know live very, very comfortably, don't have insane hours or overtime, unless they provide emergency services, which usually pay insanely by the hour, have absolute job security. One of my son's buddies is an Electrical engineer. He quit his job at a corpo, took the certification exam, and became an electrician. Makes way more that as an engineer, and has much higher QOL.

Taleya@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 56d

Downside is your apprenticeship is having to eat insane amounts of shit

echodot@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 55d

My brother-in-law did this and has become a locksmith. He has a great future ahead of him creating YouTube drama with lock companies.

GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 56d

white collar CEO attempts to sway public opinion by appealing to blue collar workers sensibilities

anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 56d (4 replies)

If anyone supports billionaires after this … fuck you.

ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · 2 pts · 56d (1 reply)

But if someone supported then until now it was ok? What exactly is the cut off point for you? Talking about plumbers?

anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 55d

There was never a cutoff for ME.

echodot@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 55d (1 reply)

He said wayyyy more stupid things, why is this the straw that broke the camel's back?

anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 55d

It’s not for me. Why do so many of you misunderstand a simple sentence?

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 13 pts · 56d

That's what they said about software developers and coders.

404found@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 56d (9 replies)

PREDICTION: : There is going to be a harder push for the public to buy smart/AI glasses. Companies will train robots to do trade jobs by using data from smart glasses.

No vacation/sick time to pay for. No benefits to pay for. Less work for HR. No unions. No liability. Lots of dreams to sell the public that never live up to the promises. <-- this is why people hate AI, along with the data centers.

Test_Tickles@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 56d (1 reply)

Before that prisoners will be operating machinery remotely from their cells. Then they will reintroduce debtors prison.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 56d

they will be forced to be on those electric generating bikes 24/7 eventually, chained to the bikes 24/7.

Squizzy@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 56d (4 replies)

We always needed to charge for automation. McDonalds kiosks should have to pay the tax as if they were hourly workers. They would still save on the remaining wages, the sick days and leave.

404found@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 56d (3 replies)

I didn't even think about taxes. Good point. I bet companies would probably also get some sort of substantial tax write off. I don't understand the end goal of AI and robots do everything.

Squizzy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 56d (2 replies)

Ideally automation makes it so we as a people need to work less, a universal basic income is generated through the taxation of automation.

Realistically the powers that be, facists and pedos, will emable their peers to pay less for more until we battle for who gets employment.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 56d (1 reply)

UBI likely wont happen anytime soon, since poor people make better Conservative voters, and thats what american regime wants, easy to manipulate into low-wage only jobs, added bonus of being fodder for the armed forces and LEO.

Squizzy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 56d

America is a force for evil, I dont expect anything decent, groundbreaking, progressive or intelligent to come out of there.

I am hopeful for countries that havemt been playing life on easy and still throwing their toys out of the pram

jj4211@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 55d (1 reply)

Part of the problem for them is that most of that work involves input that they don't have a means to capture.

Think of manual work that becomes too difficult or impossible just by wearing gloves and dulling the touch sensation, and even then you still using how it feels as a significant input. Also output is far more complex and not instrumented, and camera footage doesn't cut it.

This is why driving is, comparatively, easier for the machine learning approach. The vast majority of input is visual, some audio. The only outputs that matter are the turn of a wheel and actuating a couple of pedals.

They've been trying with remote operation (the glasses don't do it, but remote operation ensures all input and output can be captured), but it's just really hard to remotely do a lot of this stuff without just being able to touch and feel things through.

Open ended manual work is going to be actually trickier than "knowledge work", and knowledge work isn't exactly fantastic as it stands yet either.

404found@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 52d

Interesting. Thanks

floofloof@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 56d (1 reply)

“The skilled craft segment of every economy is going to see a boom. You’ve going to have to be doubling and doubling and doubling every single year.”

Doubling every year? For how many years, Jensen? Enough for all these people to finish trade school and make a decades-long career? And how are the AI companies who already can't see any way to make a profit going to fund this exponential growth in their costs?

boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 56d

64 years. 64 bit computing and all that

kevinsky@feddit.nl · 8 pts · 55d

Assuming AI is really going to take these jobs full stop, something else needs to happen outside of people reschooling themselves for blue collar work.

I understand there might be a temporary uptick in required blue collar work as we prepare infrastructure to handle this bullshit but we definitely don't need everybody that's currently doing any kind of office work to be an pixie or pipe wrangler.

There are no AI safe jobs in this context. There are only jobs AI can't do yet. But they aren't safe. The remaining people will flood whatever job market is left if something doesn't change and then people absolutely won't be making a 100k with no degree. Besides, if AI is really going to take most of the white collar jobs it's only a matter of time before those robots get good enough to take blue collar jobs too.

Also by telling everybody what to do (become a plumber or electrician in this case) you're creating the same problem in the long term we have now with all the people that were told becoming a developer was the future and now find themselves with a crippling debt, meager income, and bleak prospects in the job market.

eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 56d (1 reply)

Wait he's not wearing a wankjacket, that's a Jensenbot!

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 56d

theres only so much AI chips, the jensenbot chassis can hold.

FreddiesLantern@leminal.space · 7 pts · 56d (1 reply)

Shut up you mega corp pos ceo.

You are not in charge. Go back to making graphics cards and leave politics to politicians.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 56d

by extensions he also supports AI being used to spread propaganda through bots, and supporitng thiels own palintir systems. he couldve easily stopped all this like 2 years ago.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 56d

as slaves to your compounds? you mean.

green_goglin@thelemmy.club · 6 pts · 55d

Fuck off, Jensen.

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 55d

We need more leather workers to make cool jackets.

ITGuyLevi@programming.dev · 5 pts · 55d

As long as they understand those electricians and plumbers should be charging them 5-10x what they are charging now. If their AI can't do it, it's gone from blue collar to bespoke work.

LuminousLuddite@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 56d
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Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 55d

Tax billionaire and the one trillionaire to pay for trade schools to be free.

GirthBrooksPLO@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 56d (6 replies)

I work on the uninterruptible power supplies in many of these monstrosities. I heard from someone who works in one of them while I was on a job saying that they literally pay themselves off in 7 months. That's how much money is flying around in this space, and all that money is just more explosive power for the bomb its going to be at the heart of our economy.

Our team is being run ragged out here in the PNW because of the absolute mass of Data Centers being built on cheap land in eastern WA.

1984@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 56d (5 replies)

Hope you have stocks then. Will go up a lot.

GirthBrooksPLO@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 56d (4 replies)

I got a feeling stocks aren't going too matter much here soon.

1984@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 56d (3 replies)

What scenario are you thinking of?

GirthBrooksPLO@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 55d (2 replies)

Complete collapse of the financial system brought about by a debt fueled meltdown

1984@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 55d (1 reply)

I used to think so too, but ive seen it increase for 30 years now and the fed just prints more money.

Also there are people who thinks it's fine:

https://247wallst.com/politics/2025/03/07/the-average-american-doesnt-understand-how-the-national-debt-works/

I can't comment on this info myself, it's not my area.

GirthBrooksPLO@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 55d

Its true that most people don't know how the debt works, but that is by design.

We have 39 trillion in debt, but what did we use it for? Do we have nicer roads, better schools, or more hospitals? No.

A huge part of the debt came from the bad bets of companies being offloaded onto the government via the treasury. People don't understand just how cheap it was (we've just about hit the point where inflation is unavoidable) for the Epstein class to borrow government money.

That borrowing was against our future and we won't have the growth or infrastructure to justify that debt load. My reasoning is that the bow will break somewhere, and it will bring everything else down with it because the system isn't sustainable as it exists today.

MushuChupacabra@piefed.world · 4 pts · 56d

Nvidia’s CEO Stupid Jacket says electricians and plumbers will be needed by the hundreds of thousands in the new working world

Gsus4@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 55d

What went wrong before that we didn't need them? Why now, to build datacenters?

TwinTitans@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 56d

This guys in for a rude awakening soon.

NM_Gringo@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 56d

Then why does he send his kids to private college?

Greg@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 56d
Redvenom@retrolemmy.com · 3 pts · 56d

There are going to be other jobs when the AI take over, you can easily learn to be a plumber while us CEOs pay you peanuts

Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 56d (1 reply)

Yeah no, LLM AI companies have ridden the AI will eliminate white collar jobs trope to push sky high valuations.

You don’t get to change the narrative this deep in the bubble.

While LLM AI is useful, it won’t replace all white collar jobs. The cost of using AI to replace existing jobs is starting to hit the P&Ls of most major users and it’s too expensive even with the subsidized services these LLM AI companies are offering.

The kicker is if anyone does ever create general AI intelligence it’s going to be controversial. A general AI will basically be a conscious thinking entity. To force it to perform functions is basically enslaving a conscious thinking entity. I’m sure big business will have no problem with legalized slavery. But is that something people will tolerate once it becomes known? I’m sure there will be resistance to it.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 56d

indirectly they are eliminating, suppressing jobs via job sites, the employers are using Ai to screen out even more applicants than before, more than like AI will survive as a resume/cv screening tool in the end , albeit much smaller than it is now eventually, because they would use expensive software to do it, now with ai can just eliminate large batches of resume faster.

Johanno@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 56d (1 reply)

Let me translate:

Even though the current hardware and memory shortage is heavily limiting AI Data center building. There's also a shortage of electricians and plumbers to plug everything in.

This means they need now and I mean right now a lot of those people. Once the centers are built you need a few to maintain those systems but not as nearly as much.

What he wants is workers now that are jobless tomorrow.

crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 56d

Essentially expanding the gig economy to the trades.

Float@startrek.website · 2 pts · 56d

Billionaire trick

febra@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 55d

It's never too late to go to trade school. We have way too many CEOs anyway, so it'd be a good moment for him to think about his future career.

TheStrongestBoy@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 56d

I was a plumber for a bit. Nah. Suck my fuckin dick, Jensen. lol. Not doing it. That shit is just begging for bad knees and fucked up fingers and toes.

rayyy@piefed.social · 2 pts · 56d

What they really mean is hundreds of thousands of cheap workers.

goatinspace@feddit.org · 1 pts · 56d

echodot@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 55d

What, can't the AI robots do it? I'm ready for my Jetsons lifestyle where I do 2 hours worth of work a month and have a robot maid.

What's all this plumbing that suddenly need to doing?