Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
I’m looking forward to seeing them,” Huang told the publication. Urging the international community to “promote dialogue, study, investigation” around the technology, the pope told reporters that warnings of AI potentially destroying the world are not “fake news” and must be taken seriously. The remarks were in contrast to the ones made by President Donald Trump, who told the United Nations General Assembly the prior week that he viewed fears surrounding the dangers of AI as a “hoax.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has responded to criticism from Pope Leo XIV regarding AI safety and governance, calling the pontiff’s questions necessary and important while mounting a strong defense of Nvidia’s record in developing safeguards for the technology. In an interview with Fortune, Huang was asked about the religious leader’s remarks, welcoming the scrutiny while highlighting the company’s technical efforts to ensure AI serves society safely. “He’s asking all the right questions, and he’s thinking about all the right issues. Pope Leo, who has regularly warned about the societal risks of AI, addressed the issue during a press conference in late September. The pontiff also directed criticism at Huang personally, expressing skepticism toward Nvidia’s public announcements on safety guardrails. The pope pointed to Huang’s past stances advocating against government-imposed limits and regulation as reason for doubt.
Huang previously told CBS News that he agreed with Trump that broader existential AI safety fears were overblown. At the same time, Nvidia recently rolled out a dedicated software platform designed to stop autonomous AI agents from breaking out of containment.
Addressing the pope’s skepticism, Huang said he was unsure what specifically prompted the criticism, but firmly defended Nvidia’s concrete contributions to industry-wide security: “I’m not exactly sure what was intended, but the facts are that few are doing as much in advancing AI safety in a way that helps the entire industry as we are”. “We are doing as much as we can, and the things that we’re doing are going to dramatically help,” he added. Nvidia’s security tools were built specifically to help mitigate real-world incidents that have already occurred across the tech sector, according to Huang. “We can always talk about hypothetical incidents that have not happened, but as an engineer, we should develop the technology and methodologies and practices to deal with the incidents that have happened,” Huang said.
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