That makes sense, considering that as chairman and former CEO of Google, Schmidt has been heavily involved in the development of some of the the world's most sophisticated artificially intelligent systems, from the self-driving car to Google's predictive search engine. The company even recently launched its own internal robotics lab. But while Schmidt admits sitting shotgun in the self-driving car is not an "altogether happy" experience (read: it's terrifying), he also believes that all the fear of machines stealing jobs and taking over the world is unwarranted.

"These concerns are normal," he said onstage during the Financial Times Innovate America event in New York City Tuesday. "They're also to some degree misguided."

According to Schmidt, people have been concerned about machines taking over the world for centuries. "Go back to the history of the loom. There was absolute dislocation," he said, "but I think all of us are better off with more mechanized ways of getting clothes made." Plus, he argued, in the past economies have prospered the more they adopt these new technologies. "There's lots of evidence that when computers show up, wages go up," he said. "There's lots of evidence that people who work with computers are paid more than people without."