video Add Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett to the list of people concerned about the impact of artificial intelligence on society.
At the company's annual shareholder meeting on Saturday, Buffett likened the technology's potential to the Manhattan Project and the arms race that followed.
“I don't really know anything about AI,” the super investor admitted during the conference. You can see the details below. “If used in a pro-social way, it can bring huge benefits to society. But when we used two atomic bombs in World War II, I don't know how to ensure that that happens. I don't know how to make sure that happens, just like I don't know. I'll realize later that I didn't create something that would destroy the world.”
Buffett also said that, to some extent, our hands are tied in developing AI technology in that, like nuclear warfare capabilities, if we don't adopt it, someone else will. I hinted.
Since the debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT, investment in generative AI technologies, large-scale language models, and the infrastructure on which they are built has exploded, allowing the technology to do more with less. It has been supported as a method.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has been quite candid about this the future direction of his business. Last spring, the same executive boasted that up to 30 percent of IBM's back-office operations could be automated with AI.
Big Blue then joined a consortium of tech giants aimed at identifying IT-related jobs that are likely to be eliminated first by technology, and retraining staff to fill jobs that AI cannot fill. It has a stated goal of
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, another member of the consortium, said last month that AI could one day create unicorns (companies valued at more than $1 billion) on their own. .
As for Berkshire Hathaway, Greg Abell, who is expected to succeed Mr. Buffett as CEO, acknowledged that AI will take away the workforce, but he hopes those who have been laid off will find other opportunities. He declined to say whether those opportunities would yield the same benefits. As it happens, there is a current shortage of janitors and truck drivers, so perhaps that's what he means by “opportunity.”
Unfortunately, that opportunity may be short-lived, as Tesla, Figure, and an army of humanoid robot startups seem intent on acquiring them soon.
For now, Berkshire Hathaway is primarily exploring AI tools as a way to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and safety in specific roles, Abel said. However, he declined to say which tools companies are using or where they are deployed.
Buffett is not the first to compare the social impact of AI to the nuclear arms race and the Cold War after the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Last week, politicians around the world issued stark warnings about the potential for AI to further dehumanize warfare and called for bans on weaponized AI and killer robots.
In one of the more provocative comparisons, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, before impressing on the need for regulations to limit the use of AI in military applications, called the issue “the Oppenheimer of our generation.” moment.'' ®
