Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s startup White Stork aims to arm Ukraine with AI-powered attack drones

Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, has revealed that his new drone startup, White Stork, plans to support Ukraine by developing AI-driven attack drones. According to a report from Business Insider (BI), Schmidt's company aims to create advanced drones capable of identifying targets autonomously, reducing the need for traditional ground battles.

During an April lecture at Stanford University, Schmidt expressed his frustration over the destruction caused by the Russian military in Ukraine, saying, "Watching the Russians use tanks to destroy apartment buildings with little old ladies and kids just drove me crazy,” according to the BI report.

Schmidt, who is now a licensed arms dealer, remarked humorously, “A computer scientist, businessman, arms dealer. I do not recommend this in your career path, I'd stick with AI,” as quoted by the report.

Livemint could not independently verify this news development.

White Stork, co-founded with Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun, focuses on mass-producing sophisticated drones at lower costs. Schmidt emphasised that these drones, supported by government backing, would be deployed directly to Ukraine to “fight the war,” as per the report.

Schmidt previously chaired the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence and served as Google's CEO from 2001 to 2011” as per the report.

Eric Schmidt previous statements

Schmidt made headlines recently when he said his former company is losing the artificial intelligence race and remote work is to blame, as per a WSJ report.

“Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning,” Schmidt said at a talk at Stanford University. “The reason startups work is because the people work like hell," as per WSJ report.

Schmidt made the comments earlier at a wide-ranging discussion at Stanford. His remarks about Google’s remote-work policies were in response to a question about Google competing with OpenAI.