NVIDIA CEO And Elon Musk On Autonomous Cars: Could Human Drivers Eventually Be Outlawed?

One of the highlights of today’s opening keynote at the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference in San Jose (GTC) was NVIDIA CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang’s invited special guest, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk and the “fireside chat” the two were scheduled to hold. Frankly, it was a bit shorter than expected, but when two visionaries take the stage, time does tend to fly, figuratively and literally. There’s no question, Jen-Hsun Huang is a visionary when it comes to visual computing, but Musk, Musk thinks way outside the box on a lot of things – from Electric Vehicles, to Hyperloop supersonic transport, to autonomous cars that are so reliable, they're safer on the road than humans.

Think about it. Is the idea of a vehicle that recognizes distance, velocity, weather conditions, and real-time changes faster than a human that far fetched? Elon Musk and Jen-Hsun Huang don't think so, and in their brief exploration of the topic area at today's NVIDIA GTC keynote address they explored just that.

It's not hard to see the mutual admiration these to have for each other, though Musk definitely seems to have an even further forward-thinking vision than Huang. Frankly, however, the two seem to complement each other well, with Huang living in the constant cycle of execution demand that is the voracious 3D graphics market, while Musk just goes to sci-fi like levels with conceptual brilliance. 

More to the point, with technologist like Elon Musk and Jen-Hsun Huang out there, a world where driverless cars are not only commonplace but preferred perhaps, doesn't seem too far out in left field. But a time when a human-driven car is against the law, seems like almost another reality. Then again, guys like Elon Musk aren't paid to settle with reality as we know it in the current physical world, at least not like the rest of us do.