Why Jensen Huang Rejects OpenAI & Anthropic's AI Safety Pacing Calls, Apple’s New Direction

Akash Basricha (0:13)

Welcome, everyone, to The Information's TITV. My name is Akash Basricha. It is Wednesday, September 16th. Before we get going here, I want to flag a scoop that we published late last night. The Information has exclusive reporting that Instinct is in talks to raise $1 billion at a valuation of roughly $10 billion. Sequoia Capital and Benchmark are both in the mix. There is a lot more in the story. I encourage you to check it out on our website. Today on the show, we are breaking down all of the announcements out of Dreamforce and what Jensen, Sam Altman, and Dario all said at Salesforce's big event. We'll then look at how the prospect of AI pacing is forcing startup founders to rethink their businesses. We also have new reporting for you on Apple's potential return to the server market and why it is mending its relationship with Nvidia. We're going to close out the show with robotics. We're going to be talking to Tutor Intelligence, which today unveiled its new generation of industrial robots. It's going to be a great show, so let's get right on into it.

It is day two of Salesforce's annual Dreamforce conference. CRM Software giant has unveiled some new products, including a new model, but the event is also happening as the debate over pacing AI development remains top of mind. I want to bring on Laura Bratton, author of our Applied AI Newsletter for her takeaways. Laura, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you here. Hey, Josh.

So let's talk Dreamforce. I want to talk about all the new products that they unveiled in a second here. But I mean, the big headline that I saw was that you had all three of Dario, Sam, and Jensen on stage at separate moments with Mark Benioff. This obviously comes after the whole flurry of perspectives and AI pacing shook out. So what did each of them say on stage about this topic?

Laura Bratton (2:11)

Yeah. So it was pretty funny. It was during the keynote that Mark Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, spoke with Dario first and then Jensen at separate times. It's as they were walking around the conference and it was kind of a moment where Mark Benioff who's like six foot, six inches tall.

Akash Basricha (2:30)

Six foot five, actually. I looked this up, six foot five.

Laura Bratton (2:33)

Okay. He was just towering over these AI leaders. And it was in sort of looking down on them, which I thought was sort of a poetic moment for Salesforce. But it was really interesting. So Benioff, when he was talking to Dario, and asked him about pacing, Dario just repeated what he'd said, and took a moment to make a slight dig at OpenAI, and said, you know, we may not have had this high-profile security incident, but we think safety is really important, and that, you know, we should come together and set standards for the industry. And I thought what was interesting is that just, and later on in the day, during a fireside chat, Sam Altman, echoed Dario's comments. But what was really interesting is that a little bit after Dario spoke with Mark Benioff, Jensen was with Benioff, and Jensen was saying, you know, if the model providers think their products are unsafe, then they shouldn't release them, and it's up to them, and we don't need more regulations, and, you know, safety and speed don't necessarily need to be at odds with each other, which I thought it was just really interesting to have the contrast between all the different leaders all on the same day at the same event.

And then Salesforce itself sort of tried to take this middleman approach where Mark Benioff was saying, you know, if companies want to slow down, they should slow down, and if they don't want to slow down, they don't have to slow down, and kind of just tried to stay really neutral, which it's kind of impossible to do right now. But that was what Salesforce tried to do.

Akash Basricha (4:12)

So, he didn't seem to take any specific side on this, Benioff.

Laura Bratton (4:16)

No, he just told every guy leader, what you're doing is incredible and amazing, and, you know, tried to just... We love it.

Akash Basricha (4:23)

We love all of you. We love all of our friends equally.

Laura Bratton (4:26)

Yeah, I'd be interested whether that approaches the same behind closed doors, but, you know, that was the public-facing statement.

Akash Basricha (4:34)

Do you have any sense at all what the perspective might be behind closed doors? I mean, we're just brainstorming here. I'm just trying to think about enterprise software companies because you and I talked earlier this week about how investors were loving enterprise software stocks momentarily after this on Monday.