Warren Buffett: Is AI The Nuclear Genie of Our Time?

During his latest 2024 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, Warren Buffett acknowledges his lack of understanding about AI but doesn’t dismiss its significance. He compares it to the nuclear genie, once out of the bottle, impossible to control.

He recalls a disturbing experience where AI convincingly mimicked him, realizing its potential for scams. Buffett sees both the good and harmful potentials of AI, akin to the uncertainty faced with nuclear power. He admits his inability to offer solutions but emphasizes the need to recognize AI’s immense impact, urging caution in its development and deployment.

Here’s an excerpt from the meeting:

Buffett: I don’t know anything about AI. But I do have… I don’t…. that doesn’t mean I deny its existence or importance or anything of the sort.

And last year I said you know that we let a genie out of the bottle when we developed nuclear weapons.

And that genie has been doing some terrible things lately, and the power of that genie is would 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 part way out of the bottle 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 may do wonderful things and I’m certainly not the person that can evaluate that.

And I probably wouldn’t have been the person that could have evaluated it during World War II whether we tested a 20,000 ton… a bomb that we felt was absolutely necessary for the United States.

Actually saved lives in the long run but where we also had Edward Teller I think it was it was on a parallel with Einstein in terms of saying you may with this test ignite the atmosphere in such a way that civilization doesn’t continue.

And we decided to let the genie out of the bottle and it accomplished the immediate objective but whether whether it’s going to change the future of society we will find out later.

Now AI, I had one experience that does make me a little nervous and I’ll just explain it.

That very very recently, fairly recently I saw an image in front of my eyes on screen and it was, it was me.

And it was my voice, and wearing the kind of clothes I wear, and my wife or my daughter wouldn’t have been able to detect any difference.

And it was delivering a message that no way came from me. So it… when you think of the potential for scamming people, if you can reproduce images that I can’t even tell that say I need money.

I’m you know it’s your daughter, I’ve just had a had a car crash I need $50,000 wired, I mean scamming has always been part of the American scene.

But this would make me if I was interested in investing and scamming it’s going to be the growth industry of all time and it’s enabled in a way now.

Obviously AI has potential for good things too, but I don’t know how you based on the one I saw recently I practically would send money to myself over in some crazy country.

I don’t have any advice on how the world handles it because I don’t think we know how to handle what we did with the nuclear genie but I do think as someone who doesn’t understand a damn thing about it.

That it has enormous potential for good and enormous potential for harm and I just don’t know how that plays out.

You can watch the entire meeting here: