Nvidia CEO says don't give up learning new skills — just maybe leave programming to AI

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has clarified comments he made about the supposed “death of coding”.

Huang had been criticized in the past for saying on several occasions that as AI platforms would soon be doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to coding, young people today should not necessarily consider learning it as a vital skill.

Speaking at the company’s Nvidia GTC 2024 event in San Jose, Huang was asked at a press Q&A if he still believed this was the case – and it seems not much has changed.

Death of coding?

“I think that people ought to learn all kinds of skills,” Huang said, comparing learning to code to skills such as juggling, playing piano, or learning calculus.

However, he did add that, “programming is not going to be essential for you to be a successful person…but if somebody wants to learn to do so (program), please do – because we’re hiring programmers.”

In the past, Huang had said that time otherwise spent learning to code should instead be invested in expertise in industries such as farming, biology, manufacturing, and education, and that upskilling could be a key way forward, helping provide the knowledge of how and when to use AI programming.

Huang did also add that generative AI would require a number of new skills to close the technology divide.

“You don’t have to be a C++ programmer to be successful,” he said. “You just have to be a prompt engineer. And who can’t be a prompt engineer? When my wife talks to me, she’s prompt engineering me.”

“We all need to learn how to prompt AIs, but that’s no different than learning how to prompt teammates.”

These skills could be vital for younger people entering the workforce at an auspicious time, Huang went on to add.

“It (AI) Is a new industry – that’s why we say there’s a new industrial revolution,” he declared, In the future, almost all of our computing will be generated.”