Warren Buffett Saw An AI That Scared Him

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May 19, 2024

Convincing Footage

One of American finance’s biggest moguls saw an AI deepfake of himself, and it seems to have freaked him out.

In a shareholder meeting over the weekend, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett admitted that he saw an AI doppelganger of himself that was so good, it impressed and terrified him.

During a Q&A portion of the investor call, Buffett said that although he couldn’t have explained how the deepfake was made, he was sure, from what he saw, that it’s going to “be the growth industry of all time.”

“Based on the one I saw recently,” the billionaire said, “I practically would send money to myself over and over in some crazy country.”

Buffett also referenced his comments last year likening AI to the advent of nuclear weapons.

“We let a genie out of the bottle when we developed nuclear weapons and that genie has now been doing some terrible things lately, and the power of that genie scares the hell out of me,” he opined. “I don’t know any way to get the genie back into the bottle.”

“AI is somewhat similar, it’s part [of the] way out of the bottle and its enormously important, and it’s going to be done by somebody so we may wish we’d never seen that genie,” the Oracle of Omaha continued.

Not Unprecedented

While it’s unclear what deepfake of himself Buffett saw, there have been fairly recent reports about videos spoofing his likeness.

As Media Matters reported in December, a video of the finance mogul taking to Fox News to promote to promote crypto — which he has quite publicly come out against on repeated occasions — was indeed an AI fake.

“I am watching a bitcoin giveaway take part [sic],” the spoofed Buffett said in the video, which has since been flagged by Instagram for being altered. “If you want to change your future, go to the website anloko.com, enter promo code ‘gift’ and enjoy your prizes, 0.3 BTC. Do not miss the opportunity that will change your life.”

Representatives for both Buffett and Fox News later confirmed to Reuters that the video was a fake — and given the timing, there’s a non-zero chance that it was the same video the billionaire saw.

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