The Rp 2.7 Quadrillion Man Wants to Replace Employees with AI Agents
Nvidia is offering a new incentive to recruit the best talent to the AI chip maker. In addition to high salaries, programmers are given AI usage tokens.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang revealed that the plan to provide tokens as additional pay is an effort to increase employee productivity. Tokens are the term used for the “quota” of utilising cloud-based technology systems or devices.
He stated that the pay scheme along with tokens is a new model in Silicon Valley. The value of tokens offered by Nvidia can even reach half of the base salary of engineers.
Huang wants Nvidia’s engineers to eventually work assisted by hundreds of thousands of AI agents to complete complex tasks. Currently, Nvidia employs around 42,000 workers.
Nvidia is the company that has most benefited from the rise of AI popularity that emerged alongside the launch of ChatGPT a few years ago. Nvidia’s GPU chips are the main devices in the process of training AI models and their operations.
Tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Meta are now competing with new companies like Anthropic and OpenAI to secure GPU supplies from Nvidia. As a result, Nvidia’s share price has skyrocketed, making Huang one of the richest people in the world with wealth reaching Rp 2.7 quadrillion.
The idea of compensation in the form of tokens arises as various parties express concerns about AI’s impact on the availability of “white-collar” jobs.
A Goldman Sachs report estimates that 25% of working hours in the US could be automated by AI. Productivity could also rise by up to 15%.
However, AI utilisation is projected to cause up to 7% of jobs typically filled by humans to disappear.
Goldman Sachs senior economist Joseph Briggs stated that the risk of workforce replacement could be more massive if AI disruption proves greater than previous new technologies.
On the other hand, Huang views the development of AI agents as a driver of demand for software. The more AI agents used, the greater the need for infrastructure, programmes, and computing resources will increase rapidly.
CI&T technology company president Bruno Guicardi described this change as a paradigm shift in the software industry. He said engineers can now give instructions to computers using everyday language, so work that previously took months can be completed in just days.
Mercer consultant Lewis Garrad stated that around 98% of executives expect AI to reduce the workforce in the next two years, while 54% still face talent shortages.
Entry-level roles are considered most vulnerable to replacement because many basic tasks can now be automated by AI. Intelligence Briefing founder Andreas Welsch added that jobs like data analysis, document processing, and initial report compilation are the most at risk of impact.