Humans Need to 'Surf the Wave' of AI, Chesky Says
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky addressed the AI landscape at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference. He emphasized that AI is a tool in human hands and not inherently good or bad. Chesky suggested that the technology can be used to make humans smarter, akin to nuclear power, which can either benefit or harm society. He advocated for reminding people of their value and encouraging them…
Key points
- Chesky advocates for humans to 'surf the wave' of AI rather than being 'swallowed by it,'
Humans need to 'surf the wave' of AI rather than get swallowed by it, Chesky says at Communacopia
CNBC Technology · 10 September 2026
The Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference continued on Thursday with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen among the notable names set to take the stage.
Artificial intelligence has been a big topic of discussion so far at the annual meeting of top executives, which started Tuesday.
AirBnb CEO Brian Chesky said the technology wasn't "inherently good or bad" in an interview with CNBC's David Faber that aired Thursday. He said the technology's potential is in human hands.
"I'm not confident I'm right. I'm not confident that it's going to be positive, but I think it can be. It's like nuclear power; it can either light up a city or destroy a city," Chesky said.
He added that his AI theory is of a "cognitive revolution" that helps humans get smarter along with the technology.
"We need to remind people of how valuable they will be to society, and that AI is a wave, and we can surf the wave rather than get swallowed underneath the water," he said.
Earlier this week, a former Anthropic researcher quit his job on Tuesday, warning that the rapidly-evolving tech "could kill us all by the end of the decade."
"Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing," researcher Jacob Coxon wrote in a post on X.
The post set off a wider debate around the technology and leading AI labs, which are already under scrutiny for recent rogue agent cyberattacks.
The cybersecurity threats that AI poses have become a political lightning rod ahead of the midterm elections, as lawmakers face more pressure about regulating the technology and public angst around AI's data center buildout grows.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., formally launched an investigation on Wednesday into an OpenAI agent's hack into Hugging Face, according to The Information.
In his own Thursday session at the conference, Huang talked mostly cybersecurity and AI infrastructure spending.
But Altimeter Capital's Brad Gerstner later posted a photo to X of Huang and Nvidia CFO Colette Kress on stage from the conference. Gerstner wrote that the Nvidia CEO called Coxon's comments outlandish and "deeply untrue."
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