Warren Buffett likens the advent of AI to the dawn of nuclear weapons
The ‘Oracle of Omaha’ says AI has great potential for good but could be the ‘growth industry of all time’ for scammers.
Billionaire investing savant Warren Buffett shared his opinion and experience with artificial intelligence with tens of thousands of shareholders attending the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting in early May. The rise of AI has taken many industries by storm, including property and casualty insurance, and Buffett aired his concerns that generative AI could pose more harm than good to society as a whole.
“If it’s used in a pro-social way, it’s got terrific benefits to society, but I don’t know how you make sure that that’s what happens any more than I know how to be sure that when you used two atomic bombs in World War II that you knew that you hadn’t created something that could destroy the world later on,” Buffett told the Omaha crowd during a Q&A session.
An AI imposter
While Buffett admits he knows little about the new technology, he told attendees that he encountered a deepfake AI version of himself last year. Threat actors created a persona of Buffett that Buffett himself admitted could trick him into transferring funds overseas. AI has made cloning voices and faces remarkably easier, allowing cybercriminals to impersonate CEOs or anyone they please with just a few audio and video snippets. Buffett told shareholders AI scams could be the “growth industry of all time.”
Early versions of deepfakes made with AI created images or videos of people with six fingers, strange proportions and mismatching backgrounds, but as the technology improves, so do deepfakes. The layperson can no longer spot a fake image or video at first glance. Generative AI experts advise people to watch for unnatural blinking patterns, Henry Ajder, founder of Latent Space Advisory, told the Associated Press. Ajder also recommends looking for lighting and shadow inconsistencies and skin that looks “incredibly polished” with an electronic sheen.
More leisure time
Buffett’s accomplishments and business prowess paint the image of a man who does not enjoy idle hands. One of his concerns about the advent of AI is the amount of leisure time humans may have as the technology takes primary control over certain tasks.
“It can create an enormous amount of leisure time,” said Buffett. “Now, what the world does with leisure time is another question… I know an awful lot of people think when they go to work at first that what they want is leisure time, and what I like is actually having more problems to solve, but AI is profound. That’s what makes it a genie…we may wish we’d never seen that genie, or it may do wonderful things.”
AI in Berkshire Hathaway businesses
Despite the discussion on AI’s drawbacks for society, Berkshire Hathaway is exploring how its companies can use the technology. Greg Abel, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy and vice-chairman of non-insurance operations of Berkshire Hathaway, added details on how the company is implementing AI during the Q&A session.
“We’re looking at very specific processes where people can implement it, and at times, it displaces the labor, but then, hopefully, there’s other opportunities for them within the business, but I think when you think of all our businesses, we do have a heavy labor workforce in a lot of them,” said Abel. “It’s really around how do we do things more effective[ly], more efficiently, more safely if it involves dangerous processes, so we’re early innings.”
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