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

Post by tbrownaw » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 8:55 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #113

esafak wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Napster is an amazing example. They are a massive success story. Sean Parker is doing great. It worked out for him. So the point stands. If you get serious traction, the worst that can happen is your current company goes under, years down the line, after you have cashed out and you then fail upwards into being a successful tech celebrity. This is all a much better outcome than nobody caring about your product, as you…

Post by tbrownaw » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 9:03 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #166

kelnos wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're definitely misremembering history, then. Hailing is certainly a "category definer", but what Uber was doing in the beginning was definitely not kosher in many US jurisdictions. Ordering on-demand in an app was seen by regulators as much more taxi-like than scheduling a black car for a particular date, time, and place. Uber was originally called "Ubercab", and changed their name specifically to attempt to dista…

> Ordering on-demand in an app was seen by regulators as much more taxi-like than scheduling a black car for a particular date, time, and place. Regulators tried to reinterpret existing laws to placate an interest group. Most cities has explicit laws around this: responding to someone hailing on the street required a medallion. Scheduling a ride via the internet did not. This is why they had to pass new laws to try a…

Post by bugglebeetle » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 9:24 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #117

gruez wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you just purchase laws. What sort of favorable laws did google or ai startups "purchase"?

For AI startups it is too early in the cycle for them to do that. The first lawsuit on copyright infringement only just made it to discovery last week! In this context though, The favorable laws that they will "purchase" would of course be either a favorable court outcome saying that training on other people's data without permission is fair use (in at least some circumstances), or otherwise a new law that says that…

Post by xyzwave » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 9:35 PM UTC

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.

Post by m463 » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 9:45 PM UTC

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…