During a Q&A session at the shareholder meeting, a member in the audience asked Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway’s vice chairman, whether he thought A.I. would have a positive impact on the financial markets and society as a whole.
“Well, if you went into BYD’s factories in China, you would see robotics going at an unbelievable rate. So, we’re going to see a lot more robotics in the world,” replied Munger, who turned 99 in January. BYD is one of Berkshire’s top 10 stock holdings.
“I am personally skeptical of some of the hype that is going into artificial intelligence,” Munger added, joking, “I think old-fashioned intelligence works pretty well.”
Berkshire’s vast investment portfolio is known for its small exposure to technology companies. The only two U.S. companies Buffett invests in that have ongoing A.I. projects are Apple and Amazon. But their A.I. efforts are not as aggressive as Google and Microsoft.
