Warren Buffett Fears AI Has ‘Enormous Potential for Harm’

Count Warren Buffett among those concerned about the dangers of artificial intelligence.

The 93-year-old chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway compared the fast-growing technology to the development of the atomic bomb, saying that both could have devastating consequences on society, if used incorrectly.

“We let a genie out of the bottle when we developed nuclear weapons,” Buffett said on Saturday during Berkshire’s annual meeting in Omaha, Neb. “AI is somewhat similar—it’s part way out of the bottle.”

The billionaire investor acknowledged that he knew little about how the underlying technology works, but said he had reason to worry. He recently saw his own image and voice so convincingly replicated by an AI tool that Buffett said even his wife and children would have struggled to determine they were fake.

The power of so-called deepfakes will likely enable even more effective scams, as criminals use AI to ask relatives for money, Buffett predicted.

“If I was interested in investing in scamming, it’s going to be the growth industry of all time,” he said.

For months, business leaders have debated how AI will reshape life. Some predict the technology will usher in a wave of white-collar job losses as the technology takes on ever-more sophisticated tasks inside companies.

Others are optimistic. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has said that AI could invent cures for cancer or allow more people in future generations to live to 100 years old. “It will create jobs. It will eliminate some jobs. It will make everyone more productive,” Dimon said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Already, many companies are scrutinizing what types of jobs to add as AI changes corporate functions. At the biotechnology company Moderna, a small group of executives from human-resources, technology and finance now meet to examine requests for new head count, said Tracey Franklin, the company’s chief human resources officer.

The group asks: “What’s the work? Can technology solve it?” Franklin said. The goal isn’t to reduce costs, but to ensure the right positions are being added. “You may not need the job you thought you needed. Actually, if you can use technology or AI, then you might need a different job to be able to bring it to the next level.”

At Berkshire Hathaway, the company has begun using AI inside of some of its businesses to help make its employees more efficient, said Greg Abel, who is Buffett’s designated successor as chief executive. Abel appeared next to Buffett on stage at the meeting Saturday.

Abel didn’t give specifics or name Berkshire subsidiaries using AI, but said the company was looking to deploy the technology to make certain tasks more effective or safer. Berkshire’s subsidiaries range from the insurer Geico to Dairy Queen and BNSF Railway.

“At times it displaces the labor, but then hopefully, there’s other opportunities,” Abel said.

Buffett, for his part, said he struggled to predict the ultimate effects of AI on the world.

“It has enormous potential for good and enormous potential for harm,” Buffett said. “And I just don’t know how that plays out.”

Write to Chip Cutter at [email protected]