- Warren Buffett has issued a grave warning about artificial intelligence.
- Berkshire Hathaway's CEO predicted that fraud will intensify by making it more convincing.
- The investor likened AI to an atomic bomb, saying the world had “let the genie out of the bottle.”
Warren Buffett has sounded the alarm on AI, warning that it could intensify fraud by making it more convincing than ever.
“Fraud has always been a part of America,” the prominent investor and Berkshire CEO said at his company's annual shareholder meeting on Saturday.
But Buffett said images and videos created using artificial intelligence have become so convincing that it has become virtually impossible to tell which ones are real.
“If I was interested in fraud, given the potential to defraud people, it would be the fastest growing industry in history,” he said.
He recalled seeing a deepfake video of himself that scammers were using to solicit cash from strangers.
“Actually, if I was in some crazy country, I might have sent it to myself,” he joked.
Buffett also likened the emergence of AI to building an atomic bomb, repeating comments he made at last year's Berkshire meeting.
“When we developed nuclear weapons, we let the genie out of the bottle,” he said. “That genie has been doing terrible things lately. I'm really scared of the genie's power.”
“AI is similar to some extent,” Buffett added. “Maybe we should have never seen that genie.”
The billionaire, who touted the huge potential of AI years before ChatGPT was released, emphasized that he is not an expert on the nascent technology.
“I don't know anything about AI, but that doesn't deny its existence or its importance or anything like that,” he said.