Warren Buffett
recently shared his thoughts on the potential impact of
Artificial Intelligence
during
Berkshire Hathaway
‘s Annual Shareholder meeting. He expressed concern about the technology’s ability to deceive, citing a personal experience where he witnessed a video of himself delivering a message that he never actually recorded. The video was so convincing that even his closest family members would have been unable to distinguish it from reality.
“I had an experience that does make me a little nervous.
Very recently, I saw an image in front of my eyes, on the screen. It was me and my voice, wearing the kind of clothes I wear, and my wife or daughter wouldn’t have been able to detect any difference. And I was delivering a message that no way came from me”, he said.
Buffett acknowledged that AI has the potential for both immense good and harm, and only time will reveal the extent to which it will transform society.
“I don’t know anything about AI, but I don’t deny its existence or importance or anything of the sort. Last year I said that we let a genie out of a bottle when we developed nuclear weapons. And that genie has been doing some terrible things lately, and the power of that genie is what, you know, scares the hell out of me. And under that, I don’t know any way to get the genie back in the bottle, and AI is somewhat similar. It’s out, it’s part way out of the bottle, and, and it’s enormously important, and it’s going to be done by somebody. So, we may wish we’d never seen that genie, or it may do wonderful things, and I’m certainly not the person that can evaluate that.”
Asked about which business of Berkshire is AI likely to impact, he said, “In terms of our businesses, they’ll figure things out. We’ve got smart people and obviously if it’s used in a prosocial way, it’s got terrific benefits to society. But I don’t know how you make sure that that’s what happens anymore than I know how to be sure that when you use two atomic bombs in World War II that you know that you hadn’t created something you could destroy the world later on.”
Meanwhile, Warren Buffett assured shareholders that the executives expected to succeed him at Berkshire Hathaway were ready for the job and heaped praise on Apple even though Berkshire recently trimmed its position in the iPhone maker.
Speaking at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, the legendary investor also paid tribute to his late partner Charlie Munger and said he expected the conglomerate’s cash pile, which reached a record $189 billion last quarter, to continue growing.
