The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) relies on technology known as large language models (LLM). In order to work, LLM’s need to have massive amounts of data fed into them so that they can create the appropriate algorithms that are used to simulate intelligence.
Tools like ChatGPT, for example, have scraped the internet to gather billions of words of content, which it then uses to generate new and unique content.
One of the problems many people have with this type of ‘artificial intelligence’ is that it is essentially stealing the ideas and work of others and using that to create its own new ideas. Nothing that it comes up with is truly its own.
While many people think this is a bad thing, the former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, it is actually not a problem and it is something entrepreneurs should emulate as much as possible.
Schmidt was giving a talk at Stanford’s School of Engineering. During the talk he said something that many people are getting pretty upset about:
“Here’s what I propose each and every one of you do. Say 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’s not viral, do something different along the same lines.”
So, he is essentially saying to steal the data, music, creativity, and other work that is present on TikTok and make it your own. If it fails, then there is no problem. If it becomes wildly successful, however, the person who does it will be making so much money that they will be able to hire a team of powerful lawyers to clean up the legal mess that was made.
Needless to say, this concept is rife with moral, ethical, and legal problems.
While there is a lot of issues with this attitude (which seems to be very common in Silicon Valley), the reality is that it is most likely how at least some new companies in the coming years will become successful.
A copy of the transcript of his speech can be found here.
Cheat and steal now, let the lawyers deal with it later I guess.
If you enjoyed that story, check out what happened when a guy gave ChatGPT $100 to make as money as possible, and it turned out exactly how you would expect.