Could AI help you build a competitor to beat TikTok in just a few minutes? Maybe in the next couple of years, according to Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO. My buddy Erik Brynjolfsson invited Schmidt for an intimate discussion at Erik’s Stanford Econ class a few days ago.
I watched the full discussion, which was rich and full of challenging ideas. But here is what stood out.1
Unprecedented uncertainty
Schmidt confessed to revising his AI outlook every six months, a testament to the field's volatility. He shared a striking example: “Six months ago, I was convinced that the gap [between frontier AI models and the rest] was getting smaller, so I invested lots of money in the little companies. Now I'm not so sure.”
Now, please don’t focus on the fact that Schmidt thinks the future is in ever-larger models (he does). Rather, consider the nature of his knowledge. He is an insider’s insider, about as well-informed as anyone in this field can be, and unlike some critics, he is also putting his m…