Warren Buffett took a cautionary stance on artificial intelligence on Saturday at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, comparing the technology once again to the advent of nuclear weapons and warning about the potential for scams. 

“I don’t know anything about AI,” the billionaire investor and co-founder of Berkshire Hathaway admitted, “but that doesn’t mean I deny its existence or importance or anything of the sort.” 

He reiterated what he said last year: “That we let a genie out of the bottle when we developed nuclear weapons. And that genie has been now doing some terrible things lately. And the power of that genie is, 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.” 

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The 93-year-old philanthropist said AI is “somewhat similar.”

“It’s part the way out of the bottle and it’s enormously important and it’s going to be done by somebody so we may wish we’d never seen that genie, or it may do wonderful things,” he said. 

He also talked about the “enormous potential” for scams using AI. 

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“If you can reproduce images I can’t even tell that say ‘I need money,’ you know, ‘It’s your daughter, just had a car crash. I need $50,000 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. 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 and over in some crazy country.”

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He said he didn’t have any advice on how the world should handle AI, “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, it has enormous potential for good and enormous potential for harm, and I just don’t know how that plays out.” 

This weekend’s meeting was the first without Berkshire Hathaway’s vice chairman Charlie Munger, who died last fall at 99. 

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Hims & Hers Health Inc. saw its stock slide during Friday’s trading session after its CEO praised the “moral courage” of anti-Israel campus protesters and encouraged them to apply for jobs at the health and wellness company.

Hims & Hers, which offers telehealth and online pharmacy services for erectile dysfunction, sexual performance, hair loss treatments, mental health and more, saw its stock slide by 8% Friday amid the controversy. Though it has rebounded by 0.89% in after-hours trading since Friday’s close. The drop came as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 450 points, or more than a full percentage point.

The company’s stock is up 16.8% year to date but down 4% from a year ago and has seen significant fluctuations in that period, posting single-day gains of about 11% in early November and 31% in late February on favorable earnings news. Its stock is up 14.9% since the company went public in September 2019.

CEO Andrew Dudum wrote last week in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “Moral courage > College degree.” He added, “If you’re currently protesting against the genocide of the Palestinian people & for your university’s divestment from Israel, keep going. It’s working.

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“There are plenty of companies & CEOs eager to hire you, regardless of university discipline,” Dudum added with a link to the Hims & Hers careers page.

Dudum’s post comes after some companies and CEOs have criticized campus protesters’ behavior in their anti-Israel protests as being antisemitic and have suggested that they wouldn’t hire those protesters. The campus protests have disrupted class schedules and graduations and resulted in arrests.

Hims & Hers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Dudum’s post sparked backlash from other business figures, including Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, who replied, “Real moral courage doesn’t involve joining a mindless mob, chanting anti-US and other woke pablum, following instructions not to debate or discuss your positions at all yet being indignantly righteous, while large numbers in the mob chant for violence and block Jewish students.”

Conservative radio host Jason Rantz ripped Dudum’s post and told followers on X, “There are plenty of places to get what they sell that won’t require you to support a company that embraces antisemitism.”

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Jordan Elist, the founder of Goodnight Mate, which offers erectile dysfunction and male sexual performance products, quoted a post from conservative commentator Ben Domenech, encouraging supporters of Israel to cancel their Hims & Hers subscriptions. And Elist offered those who do so a free month of products from his company.

“Once again, if anyone has canceled their $hims subscription due to their founder / CEO’s anti-Semitic remarks, your first month of Goodnight Mate’s sexual health solutions is on us. Our way of thanking you for standing on the right side of history,” Elist wrote.

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