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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 t

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 everything else can come later because if the technical problems aren't solved successfully, the other things won't matter. I can't tell if he is mostly responding to the room or not. This whole transcript[1] is more than 10k words, everyone will probably find an interpretation from random snippets that matches their perceived reality. [1] https://github.com/ociubotaru/transcripts/blob/main/Stanford_ECON295%E2%A7%B8CS323_I_2024_I_The_Age_of_AI%2C_Eric_Schmidt.txt https://github.com/ociubotaru/transcripts/blob/main/Stanford...

greenthrow 2y ago
Whether he was "joking" or not this is the playbook they have been running for years now.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
  Yes. Sure. But the reason this is on HN (for the millionth time) is because Eric said it, and Google bad, or whatever.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  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.
tracerbulletx 2y ago
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 yet.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  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.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    You don’t have to pay income taxes until you record profit, at least, so that really is like what he is saying. The IRS is not going to think this is weird, many (most even) startups never get to the point of paying taxes, and non-profits by definition don’t.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      Obviously I'm not talking specifically about corporate taxes, here. In fact the example was about personal taxes. It's a generality about the attitude of "Ignore the rules, do what you have to now, and worry about the consequences later."
      - sroussey 2y ago
        No, it more like “rewrite the rules” either by litigation or politics.
      - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        I don’t understand how we went from talking about “companies not worrying about success problems until they have success” to talking about individuals where none of that applies and is just a bad analogy.
  - tracerbulletx 2y ago
    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.
cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
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.
choppaface 2y ago
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_Litigation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust... ). He knows very well the spectrum of stealing and liability. In this talk he’s pounding his chest in front of young investors and executives to celebrate what he got away with and to inflate his brand. Contrast though with TK, who through Greyballing (among other things) wanted to “steal” the taxi market and make himself and Uber above the law. So Schmidt’s raw ambition is no joke. But historically his actions have been perhaps more conservative than those of others.
- gruez 2y ago
  >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?
  - jackcosgrove 2y ago
    Legality is the lowest bar of ethical behavior.
    - izacus 2y ago
      There's nothing ethical about calling violation of purchased IP protection "stealing" either. It's a set of laws by encumbents to protect monopolies. And you can trace a lot of US monopolies and lack of healthy competitive markets directly back to those laws.
    - gruez 2y ago
      And what is your line for "ethical behavior"? What makes your line more valid than what AI companies think is ethical?
cyanydeez 2y ago
If you make enough money, you just purchase laws. No need to try and decontextualize.
- gruez 2y ago
  > you just purchase laws. What sort of favorable laws did google or ai startups "purchase"?
  - stale2002 2y ago
    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 explicitly. AI startups have a couple years left of runway before even the first lawsuit is settled, so that is more than enough time to get traction and takeover the market, given how useful AI is likely to be.
    - bugglebeetle 2y ago
      Given AI’s role in the new Cold War with China, I would imagine the fix is already in. The national security folks aren’t just going to let China leapfrog them in developing this technical capability.
xivzgrev 2y ago
He’s dead serious. Uber got its start by flouting taxi rules. By the time the backlash started uber/lyft were too popular for governments to shut down so instead most governments created an awkward different category for them, so there’s at least some regulation applying to them. If Uber had tried to work thru the regulation they would have never gotten off the ground or have been as loved by users. Taxis in many ways suck, and that was their opening. Speaking of which…Uber is a master of regulatory influence. When California threatened to classify their drivers as employees, they successfully passed a proposition (prop 22) with the California public that promised more benefits for drivers…but kept them as independent contractors.
- Manuel_D 2y ago
  Not really. Taxi medallions are required to let you pick up someone else that hails you on the street. It is not required for a drive scheduled elsewhere like over the phone or the Internet. They weren't breaking laws, at least in the US. Most of the regulations applied to Uber were new regulations introduced after their ride to popularity, often crafted with the express purpose of curbing Lyft and Uber.
  - diggan 2y ago
    > Not really. Taxi medallions are required to let you pick up someone else that hails you on the street. It is not required for a drive scheduled elsewhere like over the phone or the Internet. They weren't breaking laws, at least in the US. Maybe not in the US, but Uber was (at one point) banned in multiple locations in (at least) Europe because they flagrantly ignoring existing laws. In some locations, like Netherlands, Uber was fined and told it was illegal, but continued service anyway up until their offices were raided, then they finally shut down.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    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 distance themselves from traditional taxi service.
uoaei 2y ago
I can't tell if techies have fused rose-colored glasses to their faces or if they really think the people who win are nice people who follow rules!
m463 2y ago
Here's my interpretation. He's been asked to predict what will happen and is saying that AI will fundamentally change things. Silicon Valley will iterate quickly, not just products but startups, and the effort will become trivial. "That's all within the next year or two." I think this is a prediction, more of a "anyone can clone your business model, get moving"
h_tbob 2y ago
Honestly what google was doing - scraping websites and keeping a database of them - was probably gray area of copyright law. So he’s probably saying that it worked out for Google. However, websites benefit from google doing that. It’s hard to see how TikTok would be ok with that. So I think the general rule is that if publishers benefit then you will be ok in the end.

greenthrow 2y ago

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

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
Yes. Sure. But the reason this is on HN (for the millionth time) is because Eric said it, and Google bad, or whatever.
InsideOutSanta 2y ago
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.

tracerbulletx 2y ago

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 yet.

ryandrake 2y ago
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.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  You don’t have to pay income taxes until you record profit, at least, so that really is like what he is saying. The IRS is not going to think this is weird, many (most even) startups never get to the point of paying taxes, and non-profits by definition don’t.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Obviously I'm not talking specifically about corporate taxes, here. In fact the example was about personal taxes. It's a generality about the attitude of "Ignore the rules, do what you have to now, and worry about the consequences later."
    - sroussey 2y ago
      No, it more like “rewrite the rules” either by litigation or politics.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      I don’t understand how we went from talking about “companies not worrying about success problems until they have success” to talking about individuals where none of that applies and is just a bad analogy.
- tracerbulletx 2y ago
  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.

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago

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.

choppaface 2y ago

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_Litigation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust... ). He knows very well the spectrum of stealing and liability. In this talk he’s pounding his chest in front of young investors and executives to celebrate what he got away with and to inflate his brand. Contrast though with TK, who through Greyballing (among other things) wanted to “steal” the taxi market and make himself and Uber above the law. So Schmidt’s raw ambition is no joke. But historically his actions have been perhaps more conservative than those of others.

gruez 2y ago
>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?
- jackcosgrove 2y ago
  Legality is the lowest bar of ethical behavior.
  - izacus 2y ago
    There's nothing ethical about calling violation of purchased IP protection "stealing" either. It's a set of laws by encumbents to protect monopolies. And you can trace a lot of US monopolies and lack of healthy competitive markets directly back to those laws.
  - gruez 2y ago
    And what is your line for "ethical behavior"? What makes your line more valid than what AI companies think is ethical?

cyanydeez 2y ago

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

gruez 2y ago
> you just purchase laws. What sort of favorable laws did google or ai startups "purchase"?
- stale2002 2y ago
  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 explicitly. AI startups have a couple years left of runway before even the first lawsuit is settled, so that is more than enough time to get traction and takeover the market, given how useful AI is likely to be.
  - bugglebeetle 2y ago
    Given AI’s role in the new Cold War with China, I would imagine the fix is already in. The national security folks aren’t just going to let China leapfrog them in developing this technical capability.

xivzgrev 2y ago

He’s dead serious. Uber got its start by flouting taxi rules. By the time the backlash started uber/lyft were too popular for governments to shut down so instead most governments created an awkward different category for them, so there’s at least some regulation applying to them. If Uber had tried to work thru the regulation they would have never gotten off the ground or have been as loved by users. Taxis in many ways suck, and that was their opening. Speaking of which…Uber is a master of regulatory influence. When California threatened to classify their drivers as employees, they successfully passed a proposition (prop 22) with the California public that promised more benefits for drivers…but kept them as independent contractors.

Manuel_D 2y ago
Not really. Taxi medallions are required to let you pick up someone else that hails you on the street. It is not required for a drive scheduled elsewhere like over the phone or the Internet. They weren't breaking laws, at least in the US. Most of the regulations applied to Uber were new regulations introduced after their ride to popularity, often crafted with the express purpose of curbing Lyft and Uber.
- diggan 2y ago
  > Not really. Taxi medallions are required to let you pick up someone else that hails you on the street. It is not required for a drive scheduled elsewhere like over the phone or the Internet. They weren't breaking laws, at least in the US. Maybe not in the US, but Uber was (at one point) banned in multiple locations in (at least) Europe because they flagrantly ignoring existing laws. In some locations, like Netherlands, Uber was fined and told it was illegal, but continued service anyway up until their offices were raided, then they finally shut down.
- kelnos 2y ago
  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 distance themselves from traditional taxi service.

uoaei 2y ago

I can't tell if techies have fused rose-colored glasses to their faces or if they really think the people who win are nice people who follow rules!

m463 2y ago

Here's my interpretation. He's been asked to predict what will happen and is saying that AI will fundamentally change things. Silicon Valley will iterate quickly, not just products but startups, and the effort will become trivial. "That's all within the next year or two." I think this is a prediction, more of a "anyone can clone your business model, get moving"

h_tbob 2y ago

Honestly what google was doing - scraping websites and keeping a database of them - was probably gray area of copyright law. So he’s probably saying that it worked out for Google. However, websites benefit from google doing that. It’s hard to see how TikTok would be ok with that. So I think the general rule is that if publishers benefit then you will be ok in the end.