Siggraph is an annual conference that hosts discussions on the latest trends and research in computer graphics and interactive technologies, but Nvidia and Meta’s CEOs somewhat ignored that brief as they sat down for an hour-long chat about all things AI, including generative systems, smart glasses, and a whole host of somewhat bizarre anecdotes.
It’s no secret that Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is somewhat obsessed with the metaverse, augmented reality, and AI—the company has spent billions of dollars on VR and bought around 350,000 Nvidia H100 superchips to power its servers—so it’s only natural that he and Jen-Hsun Huang would have a lot to talk about.
However, the rambling chat decidedly lacked focus and if you’re looking for something to help with insomnia, then I wholeheartedly recommend giving the above video of the streamed discussion a thorough watch.
For example, the two CEOs wistfully talked about using generative AI to make pretty pictures, with Huang saying it was “really cool” to use it, saying that a prompt of “the old Chinese guy enjoying a glass of whiskey with three dogs” generates a “pretty good looking picture.” He was obviously making a joke at his expense but sheesh, a riveting point it was not.
Zuckerberg briefly promoted Meta’s Segment Anything Model 2—an AI system that can be used to select and then track any object in an image or video—using a clip of some cows walking across a field to demonstrate it. “I think these are actually cattle from my ranch in Hawaii,” he said before Huang interjected with “They’re called delicious Mark’s cows” to total silence from the crowd.
Even the joke about them making Philly cheese steak together and Zuckerberg claiming that he was just a sous chef, and it wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t slicing and arranging the tomatoes to Huang’s requirements, didn’t elicit much reaction from the audience.
I know this all sounds like I’m being unduly harsh. The CEOs may have a genuine friendship but the somewhat forced rapport between two bon homme wasn’t exactly going down a treat—perhaps the audience was expecting more insight and discussion on the current trends in AI and what it has in stall for computer graphics, the very thing that Siggraph is all about?
As the event progressed, I began to feel increasingly sorry for them both, especially Jen-Hsun Huang who was clearly trying his best to make the discussion engaging and entertaining. After a bit of a dry spell of audience reaction, a few laughs and applause for Huang thanking Zuckerburg’s comment about how Nvidia helped make AI all happen, caused him to smile, acknowledge the crowd, and remark “We’re CEOs, we’re delicate flowers, we need a lot back.”
Whatever one might think about Nvidia, you can’t say that its CEO lacks self-awareness. Mind you, a few billion dollars of profit every year is surely all the ‘back’ Huang could really want.