‘The cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees’: Nvidia exec says right now AI is more expensive than paying human workers

Nvidia's vice president of applied deep learning, Bryan Catanzaro, dropped a reality check on AI hype, stating that for his team, 'the cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees.' This directly challenges the narrative that widespread tech layoffs—like Meta's planned cut of ~8,000 jobs and Microsoft's voluntary buyouts—signal an imminent replacement of humans by AI. An MIT study from 2024 supports this, finding that AI automation is economically viable in only 23% of roles where vision is central, and cheaper for humans in the remaining 77%. Despite heavy AI investment—Big Tech has announced $740 billion in capital expenditures so far this year, a 69% increase from 2025—there is still no clear evidence of broad productivity gains or job displacement from AI.

AI spending is driving up costs, with some executives like Uber's CTO saying their budgets have already been 'blown away.' Experts describe the situation as a short-term mismatch: high hardware, energy, and inference costs make AI less efficient than humans right now. However, future improvements in infrastructure, model efficiency, and pricing models could tip the balance toward greater economic viability in the coming years. For now, the data suggests that replacing humans with AI isn't just a technical challenge—it's an economic one.