AI is overhyped, Warren Buffett's right-hand man Charlie Munger says

Charlie Munger (L) and Warren Buffett (R).

Nati Harnik/Associated Press

• Berkshire Hathaway's vice chairman Charlie Munger is skeptical of the sudden hype around AI. 
• He said the hype is largely undeserved because AI has already been around for a very long time. 
• "Artificial intelligence is not going to cure cancer," he previously said on the topic. 

Warren Buffett's right-hand man Charlie Munger is an AI skeptic and is not sold on the hype surrounding it, Fortune reported Friday.

99-year-old Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway since 1978, spoke at Zoom's Zoomtopia conference on Thursday and said that AI is essentially overhyped. 

"I think it's getting a huge amount of hype," Munger said, per Fortune. "And I think it's probably getting more than it deserves."

He explained that AI is old news and has been around for a very long time. 

"We've always had artificial intelligence, where software creates more software," he said. "And, of course, that's very useful, [but] we've had it for a long time."

The interest in AI exploded in November 2022 when OpenAI launched its chatbot ChatGPT which could do everything from writing essays to composing songs, and even code. ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just over two months, making it the fastest-growing consumer app in internet history at that time.

Munger expressed similar sentiments about AI at his newspaper the Daily Journal's annual meeting earlier this year. 

"Artificial intelligence is very important, but there's a lot of crazy hype on the subject," Munger said at the meeting. "Artificial intelligence is not going to cure cancer. It's not going to do everything that we want done."

Despite these comments, an executive at the meeting mentioned that the Daily Journal had been experimenting with AI to write articles in the summer of 2022. 

Buffett is similarly skeptical about AI. When asked how it could impact at Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting in May, he said: "There won't be anything in AI that replaces the gene. I'll state that unqualifiedly."

Still, he's way of its potential. "It can do all kinds of things," he said of AI. "And when something can do all kinds of things, I get a little bit worried because I know we won't be able to un-invent it." 

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