Planned Eric Schmidt Talk at AI Conference Draws Protest

Eric Schmidt, former CEO and chairman of Google, has donated money to Stanford University, and taught at its business school. But a group of current and former Google employees, academics, and human rights activists wants the university to cancel a talk he is scheduled to give next month at a conference on ethics and artificial intelligence. They say Schmidt is a poor ethical role model. In a letter to the conference organizers, the group says Schmidt's appearance would be inappropriate given "serious and credible" questions over his ethical conduct. Their petition was publicly released Tuesday with more than 40 signatories, including 20 current Google employees, but first sent to Stanford Sunday.