{"id":254725,"date":"2024-08-15T23:39:14","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T23:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/15\/ex-google-ceo-schmidt-advised-students-to-steal-tiktoks-ip-and-clean-up-the-mess-later\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:12:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:12:19","slug":"ex-google-ceo-schmidt-advised-students-to-steal-tiktoks-ip-and-clean-up-the-mess-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/15\/ex-google-ceo-schmidt-advised-students-to-steal-tiktoks-ip-and-clean-up-the-mess-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Google CEO Schmidt advised students to steal TikTok\u2019s IP and \u2018clean up the mess\u2019 later"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/GettyImages-2136253901-e1723761439101.jpg?w=2048\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In a talk at Stanford University, former <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/company\/alphabet\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/fortune.com\/company\/alphabet\/\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\" rel=\"noopener\">Google<\/a> CEO Eric Schmidt discussed the future of AI, touched on geopolitics, and went on an <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2024\/08\/14\/google-eric-schmidt-working-from-home-ai-openai\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/fortune.com\/2024\/08\/14\/google-eric-schmidt-working-from-home-ai-openai\/\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\" rel=\"noopener\">anti-remote work rant<\/a> that he later <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2024\/08\/15\/google-ex-ceo-eric-schmidt-remote-work-error\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/fortune.com\/2024\/08\/15\/google-ex-ceo-eric-schmidt-remote-work-error\/\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\" rel=\"noopener\">walked back<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>He also gave students some questionable advice.<\/p>\n<p>In a now-deleted video (he asked for it to be taken down, he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/tech\/ai\/google-eric-schmidt-ai-remote-work-stanford-f92f4ca5\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/tech\/ai\/google-eric-schmidt-ai-remote-work-stanford-f92f4ca5\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\">told the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>) Schmidt mentioned a business opportunity that could arise if the U.S. ever banned TikTok, as lawmakers from both parties<a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2024\/04\/28\/tiktok-ban-unconstitutional-bytedance-ownership-national-security-data-privacy-laws\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/fortune.com\/2024\/04\/28\/tiktok-ban-unconstitutional-bytedance-ownership-national-security-data-privacy-laws\/\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\" rel=\"noopener\"> tried to do earlier this year<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In that situation, he said, students should use a large language model (LLM) to replicate the program, using it to \u201csteal\u201d intellectual property.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSay to your LLM the following: Make me a copy of TikTok, steal all the users, steal all the music, put my preferences in it, produce this program in the next 30 seconds, release it and in one hour, if it\u2019s not viral, do something different along the same lines. That\u2019s the command. Boom, boom, boom, boom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Scmidt later tried to clarify his thoughts on using AI to replicate TikTok, and then told the students that everything would be fine as long as they had lawyers to sort things out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo in the example that I gave of the TikTok competitor, and by the way, I was not arguing that you should illegally steal everybody\u2019s music. What you would do if you\u2019re a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, which hopefully all of you will be, is if it took off, then you\u2019d hire a whole bunch of lawyers to go clean the mess up, right? But if nobody uses your product, it doesn\u2019t matter that you stole all the content,\u201d Schmidt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Schmidt did not immediately respond to <em>Fortune<\/em>\u2018s request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Schmidt\u2019s comments follow the Silicon Valley mentality of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2023\/02\/21\/big-tech-move-fast-break-things-twitter-elon-musk-meta-mark-zuckerberg\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/fortune.com\/2023\/02\/21\/big-tech-move-fast-break-things-twitter-elon-musk-meta-mark-zuckerberg\/\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\" rel=\"noopener\">move fast and break things<\/a>\u201d that helped make his former company, Google\u2019s parent Alphabet, one of the most valuable in the world with<a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2024\/06\/26\/amazon-2-trillion-market-cap-alphabet-google-nvidia-microsoft-apple\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/fortune.com\/2024\/06\/26\/amazon-2-trillion-market-cap-alphabet-google-nvidia-microsoft-apple\/\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\" rel=\"noopener\"> a roughly $2 trillion valuation<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn other words, Silicon Valley will run these tests and clean up the mess. And that\u2019s typically how those things are done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, a similar strategy has also landed some AI companies in hot water. In December, the <em>New York Times<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/27\/business\/media\/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/27\/business\/media\/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\">sued<\/a> ChatGPT maker OpenAI and <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/company\/microsoft\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/fortune.com\/company\/microsoft\/\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\" rel=\"noopener\">Microsoft<\/a> for copyright infringement, alleging that the companies trained their AI on millions of its articles. Another eight newspaper publishers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2024\/04\/30\/eight-newspaper-publishers-sue-openai-over-copyright-infringement.html\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2024\/04\/30\/eight-newspaper-publishers-sue-openai-over-copyright-infringement.html\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\">sued<\/a> the company in April for allegedly using their copyrighted articles without permission or payment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Schmidt has held several positions at Google, including a 10-year stint as CEO, where he led the company through the launch of Chrome and Gmail, its acquisition of <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/company\/youtube\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/fortune.com\/company\/youtube\/\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube<\/a>, and its 2004 IPO. Now worth about $31 billion according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/billionaires\/profiles\/eric-e-schmidt\/?sref=2jPYL79S%5C\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/billionaires\/profiles\/eric-e-schmidt\/?sref=2jPYL79S%5C\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\">Bloomberg Billionaires Index<\/a>, Schmidt is a major investor, including in AI companies like <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/europe\/2023\/06\/14\/mistral-ai-startup-record-113-million-seed-round-arthur-mensch\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/fortune.com\/europe\/2023\/06\/14\/mistral-ai-startup-record-113-million-seed-round-arthur-mensch\/\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\" rel=\"noopener\">France-based Mistral AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-cy=\"subscriptionPlea\"><strong>Recommended Newsletter:<\/strong> The Fortune Next to Lead newsletter is a must-read for the next generation of C-suite leaders. Every Monday, the newsletter provides the strategies, resources, and expert insight needed to claim the most coveted positions in business. <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/newsletters\/next-to-lead?&amp;itm_source=fortune&amp;itm_medium=article_tout&amp;itm_campaign=next_to_lead_v2&amp;itm_content=elon_amazon_google\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/fortune.com\/newsletters\/next-to-lead?&amp;itm_source=fortune&amp;itm_medium=article_tout&amp;itm_campaign=next_to_lead_v2&amp;itm_content=elon_amazon_google\" class=\"sc-93594058-0 fowfrQ\" rel=\"noopener\">Subscribe now<\/a>.<\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2024\/08\/15\/ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-stanford-ai-advice-steal-ip-hire-lawyers\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] In a talk at Stanford University, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt discussed the future of AI, touched on geopolitics, and went on an anti-remote<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":254726,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254725"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}