Warren Buffett has yet to jump on the artificial intelligence bandwagon and has warned of the technology's potential for harm.
Buffett said, “When you think about the potential to scam people…if I'm interested in investing in fraud, it's going to be the fastest growing industry in history, and in some ways it's enabled by AI.” Buffett said. Berkshire Hathaway Annual general meeting on Saturday. Buffett pointed to technology's ability to reproduce realistic and misleading content for the purpose of transferring funds to bad actors.
Fraudsters are known to use AI voice cloning and deepfake technology to impersonate an individual's family or friends, manipulate videos and images, and request money or personal information.
“Obviously, AI has the potential to do good, but as someone who doesn't understand anything about AI, I think it has a huge potential for good and for harm. And I don't think so. I know how that goes,” Buffett added.
Warren Buffett walks the floor prior to Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting on May 3, 2024 in Omaha, Nebraska.
David A. Grogen | CNBC
AI has been a hot topic on Wall Street for more than a year, with investors betting on the technology's potential to boost profits going forward. Stocks such as Nvidia and Metaplatform have soared amid the AI boom, rising 507% and 275%, respectively, since the end of 2022.
But the legendary investor admitted he was unfamiliar with AI and compared its potential to the atomic bomb of the 20th century.
“I don't know anything about AI. That doesn't mean I deny its existence or its importance or anything like that,” Buffett said in a measured tone. “When we developed nuclear weapons, we let a genie out of the bottle, and that genie has been doing some terrible things lately. It's that genie's power that's really scaring me.”
“I don't know how to put the genie back in the bottle, but AI is similar to that. It's something that's on its way out of the bottle, and it's very important, and it's going to be done by someone…if it can be done. “It doesn't matter whether it changes the future of society or not, we'll see later,” Buffett added.
