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Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

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Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#61

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

greenthrow wrote: post #27
omoikane wrote: post #17

It's hard to tell if what Eric Schmidt was saying was a joke, an observation, or a recommendation. One interpretation from the context of the transcript seem to be "AI can make/steal stuff and manual intervention (lawyers) can clean those up later". Another interpretation from the context of Eric Schmidt being a savvy businessman is that people should go ahead and solve all the technical challenges first, and everyth…

Whether he was "joking" or not this is the playbook they have been running for years now.

Yes. Sure. But the reason this is on HN (for the millionth time) is because Eric said it, and Google bad, or whatever.

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#62

Post by scarmig »

lucianbr wrote: post #26
scarmig wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass scraping the Internet and linking to different places was also legally questionable until lawyers hammered it out. Would the world be a better place if search engines had been preemptively ruled illegal?

As a regular joe, try to do something legally questionable against Oracle, and then "have the lawyers hammer it out". See how much of a good place the world is in this case. The problem is this stuff is highly asymmetric. Things are always "hammered out" in their favor, because you cannot afford to be a party to the "hammering out".

Most of the hammering out is giant corporations hammering each other, trying to forge a niche to more effectively extract rents.

The solution is minimal or no government intervention to create state-sponsored monopolies. When you do have those interventions, sometimes corporation A will win, sometimes corporation B will win, but the small scale individual will always lose.

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#63

Post by danjl »

You have a choice when you start a company. You can be ethical or not. It may be easier to make money if you are not ethical. It all depends on your goal. For many people, the only guidepost is financial success. For others, making the world better is a higher goal.

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#64

Post by InsideOutSanta »

greenthrow wrote: post #27
omoikane wrote: post #17

It's hard to tell if what Eric Schmidt was saying was a joke, an observation, or a recommendation. One interpretation from the context of the transcript seem to be "AI can make/steal stuff and manual intervention (lawyers) can clean those up later". Another interpretation from the context of Eric Schmidt being a savvy businessman is that people should go ahead and solve all the technical challenges first, and everyth…

Whether he was "joking" or not this is the playbook they have been running for years now.

It's Heisenberg's Joke. It's both a joke and not a joke. Whether it collapses into a joke when you open the box depends on whether you agree with the sentiment.

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#65

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

omoikane wrote: post #17

It's hard to tell if what Eric Schmidt was saying was a joke, an observation, or a recommendation. One interpretation from the context of the transcript seem to be "AI can make/steal stuff and manual intervention (lawyers) can clean those up later". Another interpretation from the context of Eric Schmidt being a savvy businessman is that people should go ahead and solve all the technical challenges first, and everyth…

I don’t know if there are just too many kids around or if everyone has a short memory, but Eric Schmidt was in his heyday know. for awkwardly sticking his foot in it with tactless comments like this.

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#67

Post by shrubble »

csouzaf wrote: post #46

It's crazy to see the repercussions of the talk he gave at Stanford, even after the video was made private by the Stanford YouTube channel. I thought the talk was great. I remember in the talk he said something like this, but he was being really open about what normally happens in these types of companies. I think the problem is that he, as someone in a position of power, was too open about it?

Why was it made private? Isn’t the whole idea of a university to allow different opinions and views to be made available?

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#68

Post by chucksmash »

diggan wrote: post #8
Ahmed_rza wrote: post #5

Isn't it what the companies already do? specially google

The playbook of "Do something legally gray > raise funding & expand > pivot away from legally gray OR employ lawyers to make it not legally gray" is basically the standard playbook of startups, the examples are countless: AirBnb, YouTube, Spotify, Uber, OpenAI, etc, etc... I'm sure it isn't always a bad idea, but struggling to come up with good examples for when the outcome from doing so have been more than just "sha…

Airbnb, Spotify, YouTube and Uber wouldn't see shareholder value increase if people didn't find those services useful. The number doesn't just magically go up if you build something nobody wants.

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#69

Post by csouzaf »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #56
csouzaf wrote: post #46

It's crazy to see the repercussions of the talk he gave at Stanford, even after the video was made private by the Stanford YouTube channel. I thought the talk was great. I remember in the talk he said something like this, but he was being really open about what normally happens in these types of companies. I think the problem is that he, as someone in a position of power, was too open about it?

> I thought the talk was great. The talk was effectively how to be a criminal sociopath with some minor technology set dressing, so please elaborate on its greatness.

I really liked the openness he presented about himself. He talked to a bunch of students about things he knew, with little filter, that's it
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