Warren Buffett Compares Generative AI to Nuclear Weapons, Warns of Scam Potential

AUDIENCE MEMBER: How do you think about the role of technological advances, especially generative AI, on more traditional industries? Thank you...

WARREN BUFFETT: I don't know anything about AI. But I do — 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 the 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 what, you know, scares the hell out of me. And on, the other hand, I don't know any way to get the genie back in the bottle.

And AI is somewhat similar. It's out — it's part-way out of the bottle. And it's enormously important, and it's going to be done by somebody...

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

Very recently — fairly recently — I saw an image in front of my eyes on the screen, and 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, you know, it's your daughter, I've just had a car crash. I need fifty thousand dollars wired.

I mean, scamming has always been part of the American scene. But this would make me, if I was interested in investing in scamming, it's going to be the growth industry of all time.

And it's enabled in a way — you know, 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. (Laughter)

So 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 is — it has enormous potential for good and enormous potential for harm, and I just don't know how that plays out.