- Eric Schmidt, the ex-Google CEO, said his new drone company intends to help Ukraine.
- Schmidt's startup, White Stork, aims to create AI-driven attack drones.
Google's former chief executive, Eric Schmidt, said he is now a 'licensed arms dealer' because he wants to help Ukraine access AI that could help it fight against Russia's ongoing invasion.
At a lecture at Stanford University in April, Schmidt said he is working on a company with Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun that will "use AI in complicated, powerful ways for these essentially robotic wars." The lecture, which Stanford posted to its YouTube channel last week, quickly went viral. It has since been taken down.
"Watching the Russians use tanks to destroy apartment buildings with little old ladies and kids just drove me crazy," Schmidt said during the lecture.
The startup, called White Stork, is working to mass-produce drones that could use AI to identify targets. Schmidt previously chaired the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence for several years. He was Google's CEO from 2001 to 2011.
Schmidt said White Stork has two goals: building complicated AI robots and lowering costs. By lowering the cost of the robots, Schmidt says the need for ground battles with tanks and other artillery could be "eliminated."
He said that with "the support of the governments," the drones would go "straight into Ukraine" and "fight the war."
"Because of the way the system works, I am now a licensed arms dealer," Schmidt said. "A computer scientist, businessman, arms dealer."
"I do not recommend this in your career path, I'd stick with AI," he added.