Nvidia’s second GTC of the year took place in Taipei, Taiwan this week, with CEO Jensen Huang repeatedly assuring that “useful AI” (read: AI that makes a return on investment) has arrived. As for AI’s wider-ranging effects on the economy, Huang expressed some scepticism on stage.

“People talk about AI reducing jobs—complete nonsense,” Huang said during his on-stage presentation. “It’s causing more software engineers to be hired, and the reason for that is very simple. If you can hire a software engineer and you could generate $9 trillion worth of productive work, why wouldn’t you want to hire more software engineers?”

Huang had earlier argued during his presentation, “30 million software developers, representing about $3 trillion worth of GDP, producing three—that’s what they’re paid—$3 trillion worth of salaries per year, which is generating economic growth for the rest of the industries. Say $100 trillion of the world’s industries is impacted…is generated by $3 billion worth of salary [for software engineers].”

It’s a little unclear where Huang is getting these numbers from, but earlier remarks suggest he based at least that 30 million figure on increased GitHub activity. Huang then later went on to add, “If that line was flat, then obviously people will hire fewer software engineers, but because the output is so incredible, people want to hire more software engineers. This is going to show up in our economy somehow soon, and so the first thing [to take away from this year’s GTC] is useful AI has arrived.”

Huang has historically been blasé about the prospect of job losses due to AI, memorably saying that programmers won’t be able to ‘raw dog’ their work in future; he told the All-In podcast last summer, “We also know that…although everybody’s job will be different as a result of AI, some jobs will be obsolete, but many jobs will be created.

“The one thing that we know for certain is that, if you’re not using AI, you’re going to lose your job to somebody who uses AI. That, I think, we know for certain. There’s not a software programmer in the future who’s gonna be able to hold their own typing by themselves.”

But to state the obvious, software engineering is not really the most representative job sector when it comes to the impacts of AI. For one thing, someone in a call centre who loses their job to AI won’t necessarily neatly transfer their skills into a tech career. Huang’s on-stage comments only discuss job losses in the tech industry, but it’s hard not to feel that he’s kind of ignoring the wider issues.

Well, don’t worry tradespeople, Huang didn’t forget about you in comments he made to Channel 4 last year, saying, “If you’re an electrician, if you’re a plumber, if you’re a carpenter, we’re going to need hundreds of thousands of them. To build all of these factories.”

I am being more than a little sassy. The fact that Huang’s visions of the future revolve entirely around AI infrastructure is hardly surprising given that the data centre segment of Nvidia’s business raked in a total of $75.2 billion last quarter. Still, it’s a no less narrow and bleak vision of the future; I’m not sure about you but I’m not looking forward to a horizon dominated by data centres.