One thing we all know about the tech billionaires is they are super-smart.
asserted
they → know → billionaires
We know this largely because they never stop telling us.
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they → know → us
The “cognitive elite”, to use their favoured phrase, are entitled to shape our future without our say-so.
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elite → use → so
When Elon Musk goes hiring, he wants “super-high-IQ small-government revolutionaries”.
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he → go → revolutionaries
Long before they got private jets, what fuelled these boys was faith in their own brainpower.
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fuelled → get → brainpower
As a teenager, Jensen Huang wooed his future wife, Lori, thus: “If you do homework with me every Sunday, I promise you you’ll get straight As.”
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you → woo → As
Lord Byron: I believe it’s your move.
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it → believe → ?
Which raises the question: if you’re that clever, why act so dumb?
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you → raise → question
At last week’s midterms, it was Musk who backed Team Trump to the tune of $446m.
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who → back → 446
With unhedged bets like that, why wouldn’t you want him gambling with your livelihood?
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him → want → livelihood
This week, it is 63-year-old Huang and his affair with a much younger woman, who the US government strongly suspects is a Chinese spy.
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government → suspect → woman
That scandal wiped more than $400bn off the value of his company in just two days, making it the costliest fling in human history.
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it → wipe → history
But who knows?
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who → know → ?
Perhaps she loved the centibillionaire for his mind.
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she → love → mind
Forget Sam Altman and Dario Amodei: no one is more central to the future of technology than Huang.
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one → forget → Huang
He runs Nvidia, which makes the chips powering AI.
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which → run → AI
Previous generations of chips have been compared to kitchen knives: however sharp, they only chop one vegetable at a time.
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they → compare → time
But the graphics-processing units made by Huang’s business are more like food blenders – they can blitz an entire veg patch.
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they → process → patch
That’s what makes Nvidia the foundational infrastructure company of AI and one of the most valuable businesses in the world.
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Nvidia → ’ → world
And it uses its power: in some of the biggest funny-money deals over the past year in AI, Nvidia has been the money printer.
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Nvidia → use → AI
It also stumped up at least $20m for Donald Trump’s new ballroom.
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It → stump → ballroom
Not only is Huang one of Trump’s favourite businessmen, he’s warmly welcomed by leaders around the world – including Andy Burnham, who last month in London sank a whisky with him.
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who → welcome → him
Even as he falls from grace, Huang’s supporters have brought out the superlatives: “torchbearer”, “irreplaceable”, “incredible human”.
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supporters → fall → superlatives
Huang is boss of the most strategically important business in the fastest-growing, biggest-spending industry in the world’s No 1 capitalist economy.
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Huang → grow → economy
He is part of a tiny coterie of people, who may well feel they sit above the norms and laws that govern the rest of us.
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that → feel → us
That’s certainly the way he has been treated so far by Trump, who was personally warned aboard Air Force One
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who → ’ → Force
that Huang’s love interest is believed to be a spy for Beijing.
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interest → believe → Beijing
Not only is China an ever-greater threat to US AI dominance, it has been banned by Washington from getting Nvidia’s top-of-the-range chips.
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it → ban → chips
And the US president takes no discernible action.
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president → take → action
Some people are in a huge tizz about the spy part of this story, notably the Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, who, after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, demanded that every Russian in Britain be rounded up and expelled.
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Russian → invade → Britain
Personally, I can’t get too excited about the threat to the Trumpian model of AI.
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I → get → AI
Neither, it seems, can Washington: it’s been more than a year since Nvidia was revealed to be selling some of its best stuff to a “dilapidated storefront” outside Kuala Lumpur, which sounded awfully like a pit stop on the way to China.
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which → seem → China
The message ordinary Americans can take from this is that a company so vital to America’s AI-military complex is too big to subject to ordinary laws.
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company → take → laws
In the everyday world, a CEO who gets into both a sex scandal and a national-security imbroglio wouldn’t stay CEO for more than a minute.
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who → get → minute
At Nvidia, the board has moved with incredible sloth.
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board → move → sloth
It declared on Sunday that it “has no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised” – before any independent investigation.
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security → declare → investigation
It finally met on Wednesday evening after further revelations of a separate extramarital affair with an Nvidia executive.
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It → meet → executive
Huang’s fate now reportedly hangs in the balance, but the company board, it may surprise you to know, includes several of his longstanding business associates.
uncertain
it → hang → associates
You’ll also be gobsmacked to learn that several members of his family are serving in senior positions at Nvidia.
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members → gobsmacke → Nvidia
One of the protections for Huang, like Musk and Zuckerberg and Altman, is that there appears to be no succession plan in place should any of those men fall under a self-driving automobile.
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any → appear → automobile
…and 16 more, not listed.
The Aporia
