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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'

#101

Post by BobbyJo »

esafak wrote: post #100
tracerbulletx wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not specifically about technical problems. He's saying that you need to just go all in on getting traction and not constantly be worrying about things that aren't going to matter if you never get it. It's the same thing as people who just opine about how they'll handle the big server bills, or how they'll scale to a billion users, or how they'll deal with regulations, when they haven't gotten their first user ye…

Do you remember Napster? They went all in on getting traction, succeeded, then got crushed by the music industry. Ignoring the law only works if you are bankrolled. Don't try this at home, kids.

Yes, but how did things work out for the founders?

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

#102

Post by gruez »

choppaface wrote: post #77
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…

Schmidt oversaw lots of “stealing” at Google, from Google Books (Author’s Guild), to Image Search (e.g. Perfect10 etc, before even Getty), the French press .. all before Viacom vs Youtube and others. Schmidt was also notably part of the tech no-poach / wage suppression scheme ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust... ). He knows very well the spectrum of stealing and liability. In this talk he…

>Schmidt oversaw lots of “stealing” at Google, from Google Books (Author’s Guild), to Image Search (e.g. Perfect10 etc, before even Getty), the French press .. all before Viacom vs Youtube and others.

At least for Author’s Guild and Perfect10, google successfully argued fair use and therefore it wasn't really "stealing". I'm too lazy to research the other cases. Despite this, you're seemingly displeased at google's behavior despite it being ruled legal. What should have they done?

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

#104

Post by throwaway290 »

baxtr wrote: post #30

This is only half true. It needs to read: “ Any VC backed startup can steal IP and hire lawyers to clean up the mess” If you have money, you can usually buy influence and also buy your way out of a ‘mess’. Just make sure that those you steal from have less money/influence at their disposal than you.

It's the playbook of ClosedAI (and I guess why Microsoft pretends it is legally independent and not its vassal).

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

#105

Post by gruez »

cyanydeez wrote: post #79
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…

If you make enough money, you just purchase laws. No need to try and decontextualize.

> you just purchase laws.

What sort of favorable laws did google or ai startups "purchase"?

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

#106

Post by salawat »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #84
ryandrake wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This advice kind of feels like "Don't pay your taxes. Just go all in on enjoying your life and not constantly be worrying about things that aren't going to matter if you die. Worry about it later if the IRS goes after you." You really should be preparing for the future and operating above board, even from day one.

If something is clearly illegal or immoral to you don't do it. This is more about if its ambiguous or you believe your companies goal is a good thing and it's unclear if you will get sued for it.

>If something is clearly illegal or immoral to you don't do it.

You're posting on a forum run by a group that asks applicants when they've skirted the law to get something done. Your use of the modifier "clearly" here is pointless. Remember; you've literally lived through companies funneling in investment dollars into things like Project Greyball, which was entirely intended to gaslight law enforcement/regulators.

Or who have regularly tried to financial engineer or corporately structure their way out of culpability long enough to successfully execute on pump-n-dumps. Or who birthed the entire sector of "totally not a bank/financial institution" that is the cryptocurrency space.

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

#107

Post by JonChesterfield »

ta_1138 wrote: post #93

The reason we have copyright laws is that sufficient people with power believe that the world is better with them than without them. Same with fair use exceptions. If an AI agent becomes just massively useful, and then a judge says that it's impossible to run it profitably with the current interpretation of copyright law, the agents won't go away: Copyright will change to make the agents legal. It really wasn't very…

Notably we got this far on the GPL which we are now burning to the ground in pull up the ladder behind us fashion. It seems to be taking people a while to notice that open source is moribund.

That the blow has been dealt largely by Microsoft (courtesy of GitHub and OpenAI) may explain the delayed recognition of this intellectual catastrophe.

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

#108

Post by gruez »

rchaud wrote: post #51
baxtr wrote: post #30

This is only half true. It needs to read: “ Any VC backed startup can steal IP and hire lawyers to clean up the mess” If you have money, you can usually buy influence and also buy your way out of a ‘mess’. Just make sure that those you steal from have less money/influence at their disposal than you.

Exactly. Uber was an illegal taxi service, and Airbnb was an illegal hotel service that skated on technicalities thanks to an an army of lawyers and influential cheerleaders on Capitol Hill and CNBC beating the drums of "innovation". The playbook has been in operation for over a decade.

>Uber was an illegal taxi service

That claim is at best, speculative. According to wikipedia they won every case brought against them, so as far as the law is concerned they didn't do anything illegal.

>Taxi companies sued Uber in numerous American cities, alleging that Uber's policy of violating taxi regulations was a form of unfair competition or a violation of antitrust law.[80] Although some courts did find that Uber intentionally violated the taxi rules, Uber prevailed in every case, including the only case to proceed to trial.[81]

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

#109

Post by petesergeant »

esafak wrote: post #100
tracerbulletx wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not specifically about technical problems. He's saying that you need to just go all in on getting traction and not constantly be worrying about things that aren't going to matter if you never get it. It's the same thing as people who just opine about how they'll handle the big server bills, or how they'll scale to a billion users, or how they'll deal with regulations, when they haven't gotten their first user ye…

Do you remember Napster? They went all in on getting traction, succeeded, then got crushed by the music industry. Ignoring the law only works if you are bankrolled. Don't try this at home, kids.

That’s why you’ve heard of Napster, and Shawn and Sean have money.

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

#110

Post by lucianbr »

Jensson wrote: post #49
lucianbr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Regular joes use adblockers and torrents etc to do legally questionable things all the time, so not sure what you mean. Personally I played hundreds of pirated games growing up for free, don't personally know anyone who got into trouble for doing that sort of thing.

People did get in trouble for pirating content. That you don't know any of them personally is irrelevant. I don't personally know anyone who got radiation poisoning, so I suppose radiation is not toxic?

Anyway, you downloading torrents is in no way "hammering out a gray area". It's just you being a small fish and slipping under the radar. The area is just as gray as before. Try to do something significant with the pirated content, as the AI startups do, and you'll immediately get trouble.

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