Ex-Google CEO says successful AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to ‘clean up the mess’

Eric Schmidt. | Photo By Lukas Schulze/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images

Former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt has made headlines for saying that Google was blindsided by the early the rise of ChatGPT because its employees decided that “working from home was more important than winning.”

The comment was made in front of Stanford students during a recent interview, video of which was removed from the university’s YouTube channel after Schmidt’s gaffe was widely picked up by the press. I managed to watch most of Schmidt’s chat with Stanford’s Erik Brynjolfsson before it was taken down, however, and something else he said stands out. (You can still read the full transcript here.)

While talking about a future world in which AI agents can do complex tasks on behalf of humans, Schmidt says:

If TikTok is...

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